Blackened Symphony
Eyes Of Eternity

Hello. First of all, I warn the reader that this is about something like "true northern melo umpa blackened electro symphonic death with metalcore influences," so it's stuff for real tough guys.

Premises:
This band was brought to my attention just recently, the "Blackened Symphony" (because if you translate something like "Sinfonia Annerita" into English it automatically makes sense), they are from Pordenone and have recently recorded a CD with "NoiseHeadRecords," a minor label that I didn't think was in SUCH BAD SHAPE. I got to know the label because it promotes Noctem, a Portuguese band of quite good level, and I acknowledge it even though I'm not a fan of the genre. However, by delving a bit deeper and listening to the other bands it has under contract, I realized that the overall quality level is really very low... and in this, the blackened kids in question manage to excel!

Let's talk about the CD:
A friend who had the courage to download it from the label's website (paying about 7 Euros) passed me a zipped folder containing the audio tracks of the CD, photos of the members (which deserve to be uploaded entirely, they are exceptional), the cover (which looks like it's made with Paint), and a stunning video I had already seen on YouTube, which triggered general hilarity with a cascade of negative comments (now they have been disabled). There's practically everything except the second most important thing after the songs: THE DAMN LYRICS. The band, in their presentation, claims to deal with demanding themes such as existence, death, the eternal, fate, and similar things. The only thing that is dealt with somewhat well here is absolute nothingness.

Now onto the tracks (you can listen to the first few seconds of each piece on the "NHR" website to get an idea):
01. Apocalypse Of Human Creation
02. Eyes Of Eternity
03. Mother Fuckers
04. Initiation Of The Depths
05. Flash Of Death
06. Morbid Evolution
07. Dead Line
08. Kingdom Of Ice
09. Falling Down
10. Agony

If I were to describe every single track, I'd go crazy, so I'll try to summarize everything briefly, and it's tough. Listening to the CD was DIFFICULT because it's ANNOYING and in poor taste, a collection of the worst stereotypes that underpin the decline of metal. First of all, the structure of the songs is definitely predictable, the crescendos (in almost every track) are very banal, and the transitions are generally predictable and somewhat forced. The sound is terrible, digital in every instrument: the drums sound like a drum machine, are blatantly sampled and equalized poorly (the rolls, like for example the first one in the first track, at the 23rd second to be precise, are ridiculous...); the guitar distortions are totally digital, and if it weren't for some very dirty and imprecise riffs, they could easily be confused with tracks extracted from Guitar Pro; the bass plays no significant role, except for an intro of unheard ugliness (the one from the song of the video "Eyes Of Eternity"), done with wah-wah and suitable for one of the stupidest pieces of dance music; the keyboards have an improbable sound, generally in symphonic metal the keyboards create atmosphere, give everything a "pompous" or "imperial" aura, but here NO, partly due to the chosen sounds, partly due to the almost new age nice melodies they play in the breaks; the voice is HILARIOUS, ranging from spoken fake evil and pseudo-dark growl (like those done by 14-year-old kids imitating "evil metal singers") to very long pieces of screaming almost like Dani Filth, high-pitched, annoying, and absolutely INEXPRESSIVE. A nice final note goes to the solos, especially the one in the song from the video, which is an immature copy (sloppy and predictable sweep picking) of the solos of Dragonforce, which are already exaggerated by themselves.

Conclusions:
At this point, having waited fighting with all the possible patience to finish listening, I ask myself: WHY RELEASE A RECORD LIKE THIS? Why release a record if you have nothing to say and don't even have taste in "not saying anything"? This is nothing more than a copy/paste from trendy metalcore bands, mixed with the worst riffs of Children of Bodom, mixed in turn with worthy loops of Nightwish and After Forever or the last and terribly bad Cradle of Filth. When I face things like this, first of all, I wonder WHAT GOES ON IN THE HEADS OF KIDS today (and I'm not that far from them for a mere age issue). At the beginning of listening, it seemed like a self-produced CD, one of those made in a basement with cracked Cubase and a digital pedal via USB, then looking on their MySpace I discovered that the work was produced in a supposed NHRecords RECORDING STUDIO in Austria.. At that point, I understood why certain "bands" get signed... For the money that record labels take by passing off a mishmash of audio takes as professional work! Regarding the human side, I won't express myself except with a further question: "Could it be that in the immature logic of these young guys there's the purpose of playing rockstars to attract horny chicks while daddy pays for the contract?"