Review Summary: Curiosity killed me again.
Kerion’s newest album is entrancing metal - wait, slow that down - it’s
trance obsessed music. Intriguingly their style also includes a symphonic presence and combined with trance it brings a cinematic potential. The potential is there to make something incredible and unique, but this effort feels retro and tired instead. An immediate comparison I drew when first listening to this was Luca Turilli’s Dream Quest, an entirely cheesy, old sounding album at the time of its release. This album has the same problem, sounding much less futuristic or epic than they probably intended, and more like a cheap video game soundtrack rather than a movie.
Kerion have a large assortment of ideas yet only half of them are executed with precision. The songwriting is janky, they have different rhythm ideas but those moments of creativity often disrupt the flow. Combined with male and female singers that could’ve both used more production, the album practically sounds like a debut album. It’s quite a shame because otherwise their constant synth attack meets choir meets metal is mixed well, and production isn’t really the issue here aside from the vocals. It’s the songwriting that puts the final nail in this less than heavenly sounding album. If you take away the bluster/paint job of the generously inserted psy/goatrance this is a transparently common symphonic metal band. I use the term “metal” loosely here because half the album they play safe Europop metal mediocrities, practically sounding like t.A.T.u.
Cloudriders: Age of Cyborgs is a barely acceptable album. Trance can be intriguing in metal but it’s filler here, sounding more like extra stuffing than fun. The songs are also forgettable and are mostly interchangeable - almost entirely mundane. There’s some cute rhythmic oddities that at times makes for a more progressive metal sound but this is otherwise an entirely straightforward, forgettable symphonic metal album with nary a catchy chorus. Greatness may be far beyond the capabilities of Kerion.
