Review Summary: Unable to stir away from symphonic metal’s deadly sins, Memories from the Future is still a solid debut by a very promising Greek band.
There are certain properties that tend to follow the majority of modern female fronted symphonic metal albums nowadays; cheesiness due to the lyrical content is certainly one of them. Tendency towards unnecessary melodramatic music is probably another while we can easily mention numerous other innate deficiencies and in the process disregard the whole genre altogether.
Greek outfit Jaded Star, on their debut delivers some fresh sounding symphonic metal with elements of gothic that will bring to your mind bands such as Lacuna Coil and Within Temptation. Still, what separates Jaded Star is that Maxi’s vocal style is not as formulaic compared to several female fronted bands. Whereas other frontwomen are striving to reach the highest note possible, Maxi adopts a more grounded and natural approach of conveying emotion by singing in the lows. However, focusing solely on Maxi’s voice would be unfair for the rest of the band as Raphael Saini (ex Iced Earth) and Babis Nikou create a solid rhythm section and guitarist Kosta Vreto’s (Wardrum) performance is more than competent. In essence, what we have on
Memories from the Future is very catchy and commercial symphonic metal with a focus on melody while the gothic touches enhance the emotional part of the overall product. There are memorable riffs and multiple layers but not to the point of choking the music. Also, the use of keyboards is a successful example of “less is more” as the guitar work is the driving force behind Jaded Star’s music.
However, the problem with
Memories from the Future is that most semi-experienced listeners will probably have heard everything that is included in the album before. Even though Jaded Star’s debut might take you by surprise in the beginning with its energy and solid songwriting, it follows almost every cliché of the genre it belongs. This is female-fronted symphonic metal by the numbers but with a high degree of execution. In addition, the vocalist while being the band’s strong card, still needs to work on her pronunciation.
Consequently, Jaded Star’s mission on their sophomore effort will be to somehow distinguish themselves from the numerous female-fronted bands out there.
Memories from the Future is a very encouraging start and fans of symphonic metal will probably love it but Jaded Star’s ultimate challenge will be to find that element that makes them stand out from the clutter.
