The Blood Divine
Rise Pantheon Dreams
Peaceville
Man, oh man, the guys in The Blood Divine must have had to push really hard to squeeze out a turd like Rise Pantheon Dreams. Someone light a match, because from the opening Gregorian chants to the pseudo-evil gothic keyboards, this one’s a real stomach turner.
Let’s start with the horribly overdone and loud vocals. The lead tough guy, whose name is not listed, has the worst metal voice I’ve ever heard. EVER. I don’t believe for a second that this guy is even the least bit tougher than Big Bird, and no more intimidating than Christopher Lowell. To make matters worse, whoever mixed this record turned his voice way up, so that it’s way in the forefront. Yuck!
Let’s discuss further the mixing; the actual good elements of Rise Pantheon Dreams are buried down low in the mix. The guitar players are very talented and come up with some really awesome James Hetfield-esque riffs, but the listener needs to struggle to actually hear them over the overdone vocals! The drummer is actually a very good, technical and mathematical drummer, but again, they’re barely audible through the unforgivably terrible keyboards. I don’t know what the producer was thinking putting those awful keyboard riffs so high in the mix!
The only way this thing would be listenable would be in recording studio; take the vocals and keyboard out, and you’d have a pretty decent, southern-blues based metal album; seriously. The band members are actually pretty talented. My advice to you guys is dump who ever is trying to sing and run the keyboardist out of town, change your name, and give it another whirl.
Peaceville Records: http://www.peaceville.com
