When I was in high school, one of the things I learned about in
\nmy literature classes was something called “hubris,” which was a
\ntragic flaw that a hero had in a story or play. The hero of the
\nstory was a good person on all other accounts, but this one
\nweakness led to his or her downfall.<\/p>\n
The concept of “hubris” kept coming to mind as I listened to the
\ndebut effort from New Eden,
\nObscure Master Plan<\/i>. On the surface, it’s an interesting
\nmixture of heavy metal and progressive music, the brainchild of
\nguitarist Horacio Colmenares (who cut his teeth with Steel
\nProphet). It’s a great idea, the music is sound, but something
\nstruck me on the first listen.<\/p>\n
I thought it couldn’t be true, but subsequent listens confirmed
\nthe “hubris” for me: vocalist Tony Devita is often singing off-key.
\nNot all the time, mind you, but enough to let you know that
\nsomething is wrong. (Listen to the choruses of “Evil Logic” as
\nproof; the band is playing in the key of “E”, while Devita is a
\nlittle sharp.)<\/p>\n
This tends to distract from the rest of the album, which is a
\nstrong effort otherwise. The band – guitarist\/bassist Colmenares (I
\nwould have liked to have heard the bass brought up in the mix),
\nguitarist Oscar Gomez, vocalist Devita and drummer Michael
\nEcheveria – offer a new ray of hope to the heavy metal genre, and
\ndare to challenge the listener by throwing in tastes of progressive
\nmusic.<\/p>\n
Of course, you’re going to have the zealots who claim that heavy
\nmetal is the work of the devil, and lyrics like “Heed these words
\nof satan’s breed \/ They walk the earth; humanity’s evil seed” (from
\n“Demons Of Earth”) is proof of this. Unfortunately, these same
\nself-righteous cretins don’t bother to read the whole lyric sheet;
\nthis song is a commentary on mass murderers, and is hardly an
\nendorsement for Satanism (or, for that matter, mass murder).<\/p>\n
In fact, I’d love to see Jerry “Tinky Winky” Falwell find
\nsomething evil in the lyrics of “Flicker Of Faith”: “Live life,
\nnever ending journey \/ Now take one day at a time \/ Your faith
\nshould be forever burning \/ When your soul is on the line”. Then
\nagain, Falwell could find something Satanic in a dial tone, so I
\nguess I should realize what we’re dealing with here. Lyrically,
\nObscure Master Plan<\/i> is not the brightest picture ever
\npainted, but it’s one that should give the listener reason to
\nponder if they take the time.<\/p>\n
The unfortunate thing is that Devita’s vocals go south (or, in
\nthis case, north) too many times, and I found myself distracted by
\nthis. Had just a little more attention been spent on the vocals to
\nkeep them on-key, this album would have been excellent. Instead,
\nObscure Master Plan<\/i> shows a band that is a work in progress
\n– albeit one whose progress I’m interested in following.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7315],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-38805","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-new-eden","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38805"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}