This Progressive Metal band from Sweden, which, although unknown to most people, impresses a great deal with their debut album. Featuring elements from bands as diverse as Evergrey, King Diamond, Symphony X, Nevermore, and In Flames, they bring a fresh approach to a genre, which has sounded a bit dull lately (with a few strong exceptions). Loch Vostok’s sound is quite dark, with a great amount of cool grooves (provided by drummer talent extraordinaire Alvaro Svanero), and cool riffs, and solos ranging from down-tuned “chugga chugga’s” to Yngwie-influenced lead lines.
Singer/guitarist/main songwriter Teddy Moller impresses too, and has a good voice that combines growls and a great, powerful, clean voice reminiscent of Tom S. Englund of Evergrey. He also throws in a Rob Halford-esque scream from time to time, and the bearded Swede sounds great all the way through. Female backing vocals are also used with great effect, most prominently during “Impressions.”
As you may understand by now, this is spot-on in terms of performance, and actually it’s not far from that too when it comes to song-writing. Although there are highlights aplenty, the opening pair of “Admire and Resent” and “Impressions” do have to be mentioned – “Admire…” for its very majestic intro, great chorus, and raunchy seven-string riffing, and “Impressions” with a chorus to D-I-E for, along with great grooves throughout.
It would be tempting to begin listing other great songs here, but as the list would probably include about seven other songs, so it’s no point in doing so. The only track not entirely up there with the rest is “The Method,” which sounds a bit rushed and simple compared to the others. Also the “hardcore-sounding” part in “Marrow” could have been skipped, the intro to “Nothingness” has been done several times before, and the the chorus in “Narcosis” gets repetitive and could have been arranged a bit differently. Other than these tiny bits and pieces, this is, simply put, a very entertaining listen. The band is as tight as the brains needed to become President of the US of A, and the production is more than good enough for a debut album.
The band is part of an offensive by Danish label Magnetism Records, and this band definitely deserves all the attention they can get. Someone bring this music to the people!!!
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