Review Summary: Döxa's debut is a great melodic metal album, wich could have been better. They seem to have a lot of potential and great stuff to offer but they lack consistency
"Once...and for All" is the first release of Spanish band Döxa. Their members are more or less unkown but as stated on their web site they seem to have a lot of experience in underground Spanish metal scene. The line up is as follows: keyboardist and vocalist VÃ*ctor Fernández, guitarist Juan RodrÃ*guez and vocalist Dina Nasser (who comes from Egypt, not from Spain). The rest of the musicians are featured as special guests, such as vocalists Juanjo Abad and Daniel González or accordionist (yes!) Rubén Medal.
The result is a interesting mixture of folk, power, gothic, progressive and classical metal and it´s almost impossible to label. It also features a handful of suprisingly well written lyrics which sometimes remind Martin Walkyirier's (Skyclad) style and sometimes have a metaphoric taste similar to extreme metal.
"Once...and for All" is simply unpredictable: you will listen to power metal tunes such as "Eternal Awakenings", a decent mid tempo with a very catchy chorus and the next one shall be "The Devil in Love", a powerful piece of gothic metal "alla Epica". "The Spirit of Mistletoe" is maybe the best song of the album, and features male, female, harsh vocals and a real accordion in a folk-metal fest, followed by "Sins of Symmetry", an original tune with acoustic elements and sarcastic lyrics, which once again come into scene in "An Evil song for Mrs. Goodness!", the fastest song of the album full of country-rock influences.
Döxa's music is in fact well-written, but the production lacks consistency. The album seems to be well recorded, and the stuff is great but the mix and master are less than average. Also there are some moments in which the songs could haven been re-worked or re-arranged for achieving a wonderful album, but clearly Döxa lacked the advice of seasoned professionals.
Conclussion is clear: a very promising band which should focus on improving the production of their following releases and finding the support of a label. If they manage to do so, Döxa could become truly one of the best Spanish metal bands if not the best. I'll wait for the following album -which they're working on- to check about it.
