ECHOES OF ETERNITY – The Forgotten Goddess

Echoes of Eternity are a new band from Los Angeles, USA, who managed to immediately get signed by Nuclear Blast. That causes curiosity to look up information about them and dig deeper, but there is no big name behind or in the band, so it seems they impressed solely with their music. The band has been praised for their style as being new, original, and not your ordinary piece of Metal.

Their style is described as Melodic Progressive Metal, but the band themselves states their main objective is to combine aggressive music with beautiful female vocals. Well, that does not sound so overly original now, and one is, of course, lead to think of all those Metal bands that work with female vocals to sail in the wake of the big success stories like Nightwish, Evanescence, and Within Temptation. But, to relieve you of all your fears, Echoes Of Eternity are far from being a clone of those bands that served as role models to, oh so many others already.

It is time to let the music speak. This is where the band manages to surprise and catch you off guard. The music is really progressive, but also aggressive, with sharp riffs with incredible drumming … the music would hold its own on an Into Eternity album. Also, the underlying feeling is similar — Death Metal influences are obvious, double bass drumming and fast parts may cause you to expect a harsh, deep voice … maybe even shouts. Instead, Francine Boucher’s voice appears. Clear, elf-like, standing in extreme contrast to the music, the voice flies over the Metal inferno unleashed by the band. After the intro, “Expressions Of Flesh” is a strong opening track that deserves nothing less but the verdict of “brilliant.” After a good “Voices In A Dream” and a very Progressive “Towers Of Silence” with strangely placed breaks – and a lot of them – the following songs do not manage to capture your attention as much as the first tracks did.

Why is that? A simple test over a few weeks brings it to light — whichever song one starts the album with, it is always a good Metal track. But with the same regularity, the album becomes boring after three songs. Even formidable hymns like songs eight, “Garden Of The Gods,” or nine, “Lost Beneath A Silent Sky,” become stale after listening to the 7 prior songs. The reason for this is the voice of Madame Boucher, which, increased by a lot of studio effects, remains detached from the music in the same way through every single song and makes the compositions seem similar. If you listen closely, they’re really not all similar, but since the vocals are very dominant in the production, it is very likely that the first three songs will be listened to a lot, while the others will probably be honored by being played only on rare occasions.

The band did the right thing in choosing the order of play as they did. The first three tracks are the best on the album (plus the downright majestic “Lost Beneath A Silent Sky,” which should probably have been put in the fourth slot, and the instrumental “Adrift” at the end; but that may just be true due to the absence of Francine’s voice), and it is a fun CD to put in again and again, but you’ll probably just not listen to the whole album very often. So, if you are okay with buying The Forgotten Goddess for the individual songs and not for the work of an entire album, you will not regret the purchase. If the band can manage to integrate the vocals better, the next album will be something more special.