The Vision - Metal Rules
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(Rhiannon Marley, 06.07.2013) After three demos, two full albums and a notable entrance to the metal arena, German power-thrashers InfiNight return with concept EP ´The Vision´ to thrust upon UK audiences. Having conquered the Wacken Metal Battle contest in 2006 and secured a place at the legendary festival, as well as having supported Children of Bodom, it´s fair to say that optimism doesn´t seem an unrealistic expectation when giving the gents their first spin. Palatable things, I get. Good things, even. Great things? Not quite. To be honest, I´m only stretching to ´good´ because I´ve heard a lot worse. The EP is supposedly about the five stages of grief. Ironically, the listening experience happily compartmentalises these into laziness, lack of innovation, too-safe songwriting, uncreativity and ineffectuality. The irritating thing is that there´s clearly talent banging on the inner walls of a comatose beast; they´re proficient musicians at whatever it is that they do (although admittedly, there´s nothing mind-bogglingly technical or impressive going on), and they´re in both tune and in time. But although there are some power-esque and menacing-sounding drum-patterns and atmospheric melodic moments in filler tracks ´The Passage´ and ´Transformation´, all in all it´s a pretty generic, uninspiring bunch of wet socks. Now, I´m not trying to be offensive for the sake of it. They look like nice guys, and they´re evidently aiming for hybrid heights that rest somewhere between Queensryche and Nevermore. And while they do to an extent achieve a similarity to the former, it´s only inasmuch as the tone of Klein´s pipes, a cheesy 80s vibe and insubstantial song-writing. The fact is, it´s not terrible; it´s just not earth-shatteringly brilliant. They´re sound instrumentalists, but it seems as though painting by numbers is all they´re willing to do, and tracks are predictable, flat and cut themselves horrifically short after a couple of verse-choruses. The riffs in ´Hideaway´ and the title-track could be infinitely more inventive - although it must be said that the latter of these numbers lives on the edge with some high-end vocals that inject a dribble of excitement, and indicate some clout beneath the cauliflower. InfiNight are neither untalented, nor abominable. But what they have done in The Vision is compile a lackadaisical and boring artifact that doesn´t hold many glittering rays of hope for their next full-lengther. If they stretched themselves a bit more, applied themselves to experimentation and innovation and stopped playing safe, they would sound a lot more promising, and could do fairly well. Writer: Rhiannon Marley Date: 06.07.2013 Score: 3/5 (60 %) URL: http://www.metal-rules.com/review/viewreview.php?month=July&year=2013&pos=36 |
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