The Alchemy Room referred to in the band's name is the place where guitarist and writer of the songs on Origin Of Fears, Fabio La Manna concocted the ideas that appear on this album.
Hailing from Torino in Italy, La Manna is a talented guitarist who's playing on these songs never falls below excellent, however the problems with this album are not connected to the musical profinciency, rather to both the fact that there are too many disparate ideas crammed into each song and that vocalist Irene Mondino struggles at times to keep up with the sheer volume of styles and genres covered in such a short space of time. Mondino possesses a very listenable and interesting voice, the issues are more to do with her compatibilty with the music she is interpreting. She is too gentile for the heavier more metalic sections and then too brash for the more whistful passages, to be fair a better production would have served her well and definitely over the more stripped back music sometimes on show, could have presented her in a better light. Production wise it's not only Modina who suffers, Andy O. Monge's drums really struggle to make an impact and get lost in the guitars more often than not and considering that the actual standard of drumming is technichally excellent that's a real disappointment.
Along with La Manna and Monge, guest bassist Tommaso Bosso completes the line up and the interplay between all three is sharp as a tack. As mentioned though the problem is not with the musicianship rather the madcap genre jumping that goes on in every song, in the space of two minutes you can have everything from Kamelot, Marillion, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Dream Theater influences thrown at you. Now for someone like myself that enjoys challenging angular music that would sound an intriguing mix, however the sections struggle to blend and in places feel fused together instead of sounding like natural progression and when you add in Mondino struggling to keep up then at times you are left with a rather unfocused if well played set of songs. When the four piece settle for a sustained peroid then the results are not bad at all, sections of "Waking The Child – part 1" and "La Fin Absolue Du Monde" are impressive progressive metal.
Alchemy Room shouldn't be written off, there's way too much talent on show across the disc for that, however if album number two is to have a stronger impact then a more critical editorial eye, or an outside producer is needed.
Sometimes the old saying of less is more is indeed the case and Origin Of Fears is a perfect example of that.
Track list:
01.Inside My Fear
02.La Fin Absolue Du Monde
03.Obsession Red Blood
04.Lost
05.Waking The Child part 1
06.Waking The Child part 2
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