Everdawn: Cleopatra

Everdawn are composed of four of the five musicians who made up the band Midnight Eternal. Following an acrimonious split with their former lead singer, they recruited female soprano Alina Gavrilenko and adopted their new moniker, with Cleopatra being the first outing for the new outfit.

Everdawn’s line-up include Symphony X’s bassist Mike LePond, and with Gavrilenko’s vocals falling somewhere between past and present Nightwish vocalists (a bit of Tarja here, a bit of Floor there), you get a good feel for what this album might sound like. Cleopatra opens with all guns blazing; “Ghost Shadow Requiem� is a cracker, with a great opening riff, plentiful dramatic orchestration and good changes of pace and tone throughout. Guitarist Richard Fischer is worthy of a special mention as his solo’s both here and elsewhere on the album are consistently strong, both technically impressive whilst also being melodic and servicing the songs.

Other highlights are the title track, blending middle-eastern themes with a vintage Iron Maiden feel and having some rewarding compositional complexity to it; the slower-paced “Your Majesty Sadness�, which has Gavrilenko duetting with Therion’s Thomas Vikström, and “Lucid Dream�, a speedier, punchy number that gives the album a shot of adrenaline after some more mid-paced numbers.

Overall, Everdawn perhaps set themselves up for a bit of a fall by having such a superb lead track; nothing else here quite touches it, and in truth there are a few tracks that are merely in the ‘OK-to -quite good’ range but as a whole this is still a superior release within its genre, and bodes well for any follow-up.

Tracklist:
1.Ghost Shadow Requiem
2.Stranded in Bangalore
3.Cleopatra
4.Your Majesty Sadness
5.Infinity Divine
6.Pariah’s Revenge
7.Lucid Dream
8.Heart Of A Lion
9.Toledo 712 A.D.
10.Rider Of The Storm
11.Last Eden

Added: August 13th 2021
Reviewer: Tom De Val
Score:
Related Link: Band @ Bandcamp
Hits: 1068
Language: english

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