Eden's Fall: Harmony of Lies

After a lot of hard work, Illinois-based heavy metal band Eden's Fall have released their debut album titled Harmony of Lies. They caught my attention a few months ago when I heard Dan Swano was mixing their album. Later on, it was also announced that another musical genius, James Murphy of Death and Testament fame, did the mastering on the album. Needless to say, my curiousity was piqued. But what's best is, the album lived up to my expectations, as an excellent thrash metal meets darkened US power metal effort.

Most of the songs on Harmony of Lies are highly old-school thrash metal influenced, as traces of Overkill (particularly in the vocals) and Exodus are detected in their songcraft, but there is also a good dose of 90's US metal here. I had to think of Nevermore circa Dreaming Neon Black on "Bleed" and the ambitious album finale "Nothingheart". Starting with dark acoustic guitars that quickly transform into bone-crushing riffs with thrashy drum attacks, the former has great Warrel Dane type of singing by John Barr, who is otherwise more of a Chuck Billy meets Blitz kind of a vocalist. "Nothingheart" also contains some acoustic guitar in its intro but the tune develops into an outstanding piece with soaring guitar harmonies and angry vocals. The shred guitar riffs that open "Blur the Lines", at first, suggest Eden's Fall is one of those self-indulgent acts playing endless leads that segue into other extended interplay. Thankfully, that is the only shredding on the whole album, as Harmony of Lies is mostly mid-tempo thrash metal with classic Iced Earth style power metal elements. When I say Iced Earth, I'm strictly referring to their stuff up to Burning Offerings though. The drumming on "Planet Haste" matches the raw Blitz-gone-mad vocals of Barr, while "Lost Again" is filled with a lot of interesting scales (mostly Egyptian), intricate thrash riffs, and Iced Earth style calm acoustic sections. The drumming on "Chemical Dreams" brings to mind Exodus circa Pleasure of the Flesh. "Liquid Christ" is crunchy power/thrash a la Enertia, another ambitious US band worth checking out, and I really dig the spoken vocals while guitarist Rob Aquino and bass guy Dan Gronowski throw out chunks of headbanging riffs.

A successful debut with a great artwork and sonic quality. Fans of slower thrash metal and dark power need to check Eden's Fall out. They may be pleasantly surprised.

Track Listing

1. Blur the Lines
2. Planet Hate
3. Lost Again
4. Chemical Dreams
5. Bleed
6. Dead Thought Matrix
7. Liquid Christ
8. We Betray
9. Nothingheart

Added: February 8th 2006
Reviewer: Murat Batmaz
Score:
Related Link: Eden's Fall website
Hits: 4338
Language: english

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