Seven Nails: Factory Of Dreams

Another day, another Symphonic Progressive Metal band spins in the CD player. In this case it is German debutants Seven Nails who boast a six-piece line-up featuring a classically trained vocalist and full-time violin player. So kudos to Seven Nails for going the whole hog and working in a manner which allows them to transpose their recorded sound into the live arena with precision. Yes, as you'd expect, they also feature keyboards in their sound, but in essence the Symph in this band comes from the bow of Marion Huttl. However what that also means is that there's a temptation to make sure that the violin features heavily - very heavily - across the thirteen tracks on this band's debut album Factory Of Dreams. Unfortunately to the extent that it can and often does, become more of an annoyance than an embellishment. In style the nearest comparison to Seven Nails is the band which shares their album title, Factory Of Dreams, with layered voices operating operatically over barrages of guitars and galloping drums. All of these aspects are handled expertly and it is hard to fault any individual performances anywhere on this album. However bring it all together and the sailing isn't so plain, with the heavy sections sounding overbearing and confused as too many ideas bounce into each other, desperately jockeying for space as they do so. Add to that female vocals which seldom vary in their high end attack and male ones which lack character, and the whole experience becomes draining and more of an endurance test than something to truly enjoy.

Respite does appear in the shape of songs, "Prisoner Of My Own", or "The Way To The Butterflies" where things are stripped back a little or the pace is lessened from time to time. But then the violin comes in again to shove home the point that this is classically inspired music, whether the mood really requires it or not.

"Phantoms" leads the way in showing how it should be done, with the drums breaking through a little more forcefully and the vocals a little deeper in the mix, allowing the focus to sit more pointedly on the melody behind the maelstrom. However the likes of "Pharaoh's Call", where chanting high pitched vocals go up against grizzly spoken sections, a fuzzy guitar riff and buzzing violin strokes, finds everything verging on falling in on itself, so overweight with ideas is it.

I can't deny that there is a section of Symphonic Progressive Metal fans out there who will absolutely lap this stuff up. However for me less is more and there's just far too much more in Seven Nails' Factory Of Dreams.

Track Listing
1. Intro
2. Factory Of Dreams
3. Next Page
4. Frozen Blue
5. Pharaoh's Call
6. Behind Your Mirror
7. Prisoner Of My Own
8. The Way To The Butterflies
9. Let Me Breath
10. Masquerade
11. Phantoms
12. Choose Your Weapons Right
13. Eyes Of Medusa

Added: April 27th 2013
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Seven Nails on BandCamp
Hits: 2054
Language: english

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