Spheric Universe Experience

Unreal

Sensory Records

3.0

 

Not every band that can manage to snag themselves a keyboard is cut out to play Power Metal. And such is the case with Spheric Universe experience and their latest effort Unreal. Throughout the album you can tell that they are reaching for huge Power Metal sounds. In the vein ofElvenKing   but they just don't pull it off. While there is some solid guitar and drum work going on here, its the vocals and the keyboards that kill the Power Metal vibe that they're shooting for. Simply put the singer just doesn't have the pipes or the range needed to front a band like this. Most of if comes off sounding flat at best and in places where he is really reaching for a note you can hear him straining for the sound. Never a good thing to let the audience know how bad a note hurts. The only place on the album where the keys work well is in the intro for the song Near Death Experience. A truly lovely piano solo opens up that track. But other than that its just the same series of melodies played over and over again with very little variation there. And when he does try to switch things up it comes out sounding like the backing tracks to an animated fairy tale. Light hearted and fanciful not necessarily what I want to hear from a Power Metal band whose lyrics are themed by death, chaos and disorder.