EAGLEHEART
Six years later and Eagleheart emerges with a new look, new theme, and have offered a symbolic “wake up call for reality” to their fans. 2017’s ‘Reverse’ comes to us from the Czech metallers as a slight change up to their previous work, ‘Dream Therapy’, which featured a sort of escape from reality and living in a dream world. This new direction includes personnel changes as well; the biggest change coming in their creative ways of shifting around vocals. Vojtech Šimoník led the way on vocals prior, but has since shifted to bass this outing, also volunteering his voice to backing vocals in places throughout. Roman Sácek is now lead vocalist, with guitarist Michal Kus offering more backing vocals. This sounds like it would be rather confusing but, after a few listens, it really isn’t too complex to get the hang of keeping it rather consistent throughout the entire album and offering nice variety overall. Not to be forgotten, Michal Jankuliak riffs on his axe and Filip Smetana with the speedy bongos as well!
Taking a dive into ‘Reverse’, we get an ambient intro that serves as a passable entry leading into ‘Until Fear is Gone’. Speedy beats welcome us to a speed bump of lurking or crawling vocals. Interesting contrast from the overall pacing of the track. ‘Healing the Scars’ has similar build with a more straightforward power/speed metal backing. Loving the chorus in this one. ‘All I Am’ introduces some nice machine gunning riffs. Some growling vocals creep in here for the first time on this album. A nice touch!
‘Palace of Thoughts’ is an interesting romp with creative pacing and some ‘interesting’ jumps from vocalist to vocalist. Also includes a nice change up in the middle with a soft touch of crying guitars. At this point, it’s noticeable that we see Eagleheart start to really grow comfortable with the adjustments they made, building into the strongest section of the album from tracks 6 through 9. Our title track, ‘Reverse’, ranks in as the second longest track, and also is one of the best. One must be careful, though, as there are spatters of creatively placed vocal tuning/editing that might make hardened metal heads cringe.
‘Erased from Existence’ has a nice intro that quickly builds into a beautiful rhythm, calming your senses and taking your ears on a journey into a somewhat depressing chorus. ‘Mind to Decipher’ and ‘Endless’ offer powerful choruses and well executed guitars; the only drawback being that, in a few places, the build to said chorus is a bit abrupt but, overall, really good stuff here! ‘Enemy Within’ sounds eerily similar to an Amaranthe tune, with nice dual vocals going and some clever placement of keys blend this song together fairly well. Not a bad thing at all if you’re into that sort of thing. Bringing us to a fine closing track in ‘Painting the Shadows by Light’.
Was the wait worth it? The simple answer is “Yes!”. More bands could take note from Eagleheart’s courage with this release. They put much effort into creating something unique from both their past work and new ventures, evolving into a well-made album that won’t disappoint. However, a touch of fans might cringe a moment or two during listens with the over produced electronic/auto tuned vocals. Recommended!
Taking a dive into ‘Reverse’, we get an ambient intro that serves as a passable entry leading into ‘Until Fear is Gone’. Speedy beats welcome us to a speed bump of lurking or crawling vocals. Interesting contrast from the overall pacing of the track. ‘Healing the Scars’ has similar build with a more straightforward power/speed metal backing. Loving the chorus in this one. ‘All I Am’ introduces some nice machine gunning riffs. Some growling vocals creep in here for the first time on this album. A nice touch!
‘Palace of Thoughts’ is an interesting romp with creative pacing and some ‘interesting’ jumps from vocalist to vocalist. Also includes a nice change up in the middle with a soft touch of crying guitars. At this point, it’s noticeable that we see Eagleheart start to really grow comfortable with the adjustments they made, building into the strongest section of the album from tracks 6 through 9. Our title track, ‘Reverse’, ranks in as the second longest track, and also is one of the best. One must be careful, though, as there are spatters of creatively placed vocal tuning/editing that might make hardened metal heads cringe.
‘Erased from Existence’ has a nice intro that quickly builds into a beautiful rhythm, calming your senses and taking your ears on a journey into a somewhat depressing chorus. ‘Mind to Decipher’ and ‘Endless’ offer powerful choruses and well executed guitars; the only drawback being that, in a few places, the build to said chorus is a bit abrupt but, overall, really good stuff here! ‘Enemy Within’ sounds eerily similar to an Amaranthe tune, with nice dual vocals going and some clever placement of keys blend this song together fairly well. Not a bad thing at all if you’re into that sort of thing. Bringing us to a fine closing track in ‘Painting the Shadows by Light’.
Was the wait worth it? The simple answer is “Yes!”. More bands could take note from Eagleheart’s courage with this release. They put much effort into creating something unique from both their past work and new ventures, evolving into a well-made album that won’t disappoint. However, a touch of fans might cringe a moment or two during listens with the over produced electronic/auto tuned vocals. Recommended!
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Scarlet Records
Album
REVERSE
Review by Joshua Jaeger
RUNNING TIME:
55:22
RELEASE DATE:
18th August 2017
TRACK LISTING
1) Awakening
2) Until Fear is Gone
3) Healing the Scars; 4) All I Am
5) Palace of Thoughts
6) Reverse
7) Erased From Existence
8) Mind to Decipher
9) Endless
10) Enemy Within
11) Painting the Shadows by Light
12) Erased (bonus)
2) Until Fear is Gone
3) Healing the Scars; 4) All I Am
5) Palace of Thoughts
6) Reverse
7) Erased From Existence
8) Mind to Decipher
9) Endless
10) Enemy Within
11) Painting the Shadows by Light
12) Erased (bonus)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:
CZ
"More bands could take note from Eagleheart’s courage with this release. They put much effort into creating something unique from both their past work and new ventures..."
