Album Review
Ah yes, my first demo review ever, but I wasn’t really expecting this. That’s what I get for picking releases based on cover art, a three track, twenty-minute instrumental effort by Illinois 3-piece Lost In Blue, titled These Are The Days To Remember. I’m all for open-minded listening if something doesn’t necessarily fall under the category of “metal”, but this one tested my patience. I’ll try to make this brief…
At their very heaviest, Lost In Blue are thrash-lite, and that’s fluffing the pillow quite a bit. The first track “Kali Mist” sounds like a cross between Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”, any choice of mellow ZZ Top tunes off Eliminator, and Opeth’s Damnation album. Not only is it too long, the structure and melodies sound immediately familiar upon the first listen, to the point where I’m almost 100% certain I’ve heard them before. The bite in the ass about this is these guys are capable of playing some great music, but their choices in songwriting direction are frankly quite boring. The Helloween-ish gallop, nimble fretwork, and dueling harmonies of “Illusions Be Shattered” manage to lift things a bit, but then it’s right back to more acoustic ideas that sound like leftovers from Opeth’s least exciting album.
One thing that is pleasing to the ear is the overall Spanish flavor sprinkled onto each of these three pieces in tasteful amounts, most notably during the bustling final tune, “A Day To Remember”. It makes for a smooth, cohesive listen, but I worry about whether or not this would appeal to a wider audience even with a vocalist, which they are currently seeking to add to the lineup. It would take quite a bit of tweaking to shape their style based on this demo into something a vocalist can compliment. But again, this little disc is just a sampler of what they’re capable of, so no one stylistic direction has been set in stone at this point, thankfully. As it stands, Lost In Blue is two steps heavier than well-performed dentist office music, but with a little bit o’ beefy metal added to the mix, and a singer as capable with his/her voice as the musicians are with their instruments, I could picture Sensory, or perhaps Cruz Del Sur signing these guys to a one or two-album deal. Take from that what you may, or perhaps you prefer to nap in silence.
At their very heaviest, Lost In Blue are thrash-lite, and that’s fluffing the pillow quite a bit. The first track “Kali Mist” sounds like a cross between Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”, any choice of mellow ZZ Top tunes off Eliminator, and Opeth’s Damnation album. Not only is it too long, the structure and melodies sound immediately familiar upon the first listen, to the point where I’m almost 100% certain I’ve heard them before. The bite in the ass about this is these guys are capable of playing some great music, but their choices in songwriting direction are frankly quite boring. The Helloween-ish gallop, nimble fretwork, and dueling harmonies of “Illusions Be Shattered” manage to lift things a bit, but then it’s right back to more acoustic ideas that sound like leftovers from Opeth’s least exciting album.
One thing that is pleasing to the ear is the overall Spanish flavor sprinkled onto each of these three pieces in tasteful amounts, most notably during the bustling final tune, “A Day To Remember”. It makes for a smooth, cohesive listen, but I worry about whether or not this would appeal to a wider audience even with a vocalist, which they are currently seeking to add to the lineup. It would take quite a bit of tweaking to shape their style based on this demo into something a vocalist can compliment. But again, this little disc is just a sampler of what they’re capable of, so no one stylistic direction has been set in stone at this point, thankfully. As it stands, Lost In Blue is two steps heavier than well-performed dentist office music, but with a little bit o’ beefy metal added to the mix, and a singer as capable with his/her voice as the musicians are with their instruments, I could picture Sensory, or perhaps Cruz Del Sur signing these guys to a one or two-album deal. Take from that what you may, or perhaps you prefer to nap in silence.