UMUR
"Ashes" is the debut full-length studio album by Brisbane based Australian progressive metal act Arcane. The album, which was originally intended to be released as an EP and only to feature the 24:15 minute long "Ashes" track, was released in February 2007 by OzProg Music. Now with 4 additional tracks and a playing time of 55:57 minutes.
The band play a very intricate form of progressive metal with interesting song structures, a generally dark and melancholic atmosphere and off course impeccable and at times virtuosic musicianship. The latter is more or less a trademark of the genre, so it´s not so surprising. Lead vocalist Jim Grey has a rather distinct voice and it took me a while to appreciate, but he sure is very skilled and after I got used to his voice, I greatly enjoy his delivery. At times he reminds me of Jan-Henrik Ohme from the Norwegian act Gazpacho. There´s lots of passion and also bite in his performance. I like the fact that he is able to deliver both soft style vocals and more raw almost aggressive ones too. We´re not talking extreme metal vocals here though, just a convincing, powerful and passionte clean vocals.
As such Arcane don´t bring much new to the table if you are well versed in progressive metal neither when talking instrumentation nor songwriting, but they deliver high quality material and it´s obvious that these guys are very talented and I´m sure they will release even more unique sounding material in the future. With a strong and unique sounding vocalist like Jim Grey there´s certainly a possibility that it might happen. Much starts with a good vocalist and bearing that in mind Arcane are very fortunate to have Jim Grey.
There are many good things to say about "Ashes" and overall I really enjoy the album, but unfortunately there´s one thing holding the album back from being really great. The sound production isn´t very good and while I can live with that because the music is as convincing and well excecuted as it is, it´s still an issue that drags my rating down a bit. The sound is pretty powerless and some of the instruments (mainly the keyboards) sound detached from the rest of the instruments in the soundscape. So a 3.5 star rating is warranted. With a better production "Ashes" would have been a sure 4 star rating.