Review Summary: Skyfire proves they are a force to be reckoned with on their first CD, Timeless Departure, filled with neoclassical melodies, and technical riffs. Few bands stand in league with Skyfire.
Timeless Departure is Skyfire's first Cd, and is definitely the best display of their black metal style, and neo classical musicianship. Every song is fast, technical, and dark; every guitar riff is a pure display of technique, and style. The Synthesizers are constantly playing a baroque melody, which I would normally find annoying, but Skyfire pulls it off just right. The Vocals are a raspy shriek, which goes perfectly with the dark atmosphere of the music. However the bass, and drums are under embellished, which is the only true flaw with this album.
The strong point of this album is definitely the guitar work. There commonly fast tremolo picked chord progressions beneath a technical, but emotional lead guitar riff, which is almost like a mini guitar solo. The lead guitarist commonly uses sweeping, tapping, or just a baroque melody. The best examples of this guitar style are on By God Forsaken, Breed Through Me, Bleed For Me, and Skyfire. However like most swedish metal bands there are few, if any guitar solos, and Skyfire is definitely one of those bands. This lack of guitar solo's contradicts with the neoclassical metal genre, even just a few more technical lead fills, and occasional guitar solo would perfect the guitar work.
The drumming, and bass work, need some improvement. The focus on keyboards, and guitars steals to much attention away from the rhythm section, which is obviously very talented. Drummer utilizes complex rhythms, and frantic double bass-work, with occasional blast beats, and a groovy rhythm during the choruses. I have not been able to here the bass at all on this album at all. The focus on key boards should definitely be turned down allot to give the bass, and drums a chance to shine.
The Keyboards are very impressive, and annoying at the same time. The key boards are almost always harmonized with the guitars, this sounds cool, but it has always been my opinion that keyboards don't belong in extreme metal, unless they are used subtly, and only to play simple chord progressions, or intro melodies. The key boards also take away from the quality of the rhythm section. Even though Skyfire is a very unique, and non traditional band they should definitely leave the complex, and fast parts for the guitars, and stick with chords, like their Scandinavian predecessors, such as In Flames, and Dark Tranquility.
Skyfire have proven themselves as a force to be reckoned with on their first full length c.d.. They are one of the few Scandinavian extreme metal bands to do something new with the genre of melodic death metal since the mid nineties. And their later releases show that they continue to grow as musicians with each album.
