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Eyala - Awaken CD (album) cover

AWAKEN

Eyala

 

Progressive Metal

4.00 | 4 ratings

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TCat
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
4 stars In their debut album, the band Eyala proves itself a worthy contender is offering some of the best heavy progressive metal for 2019. In a year of some excellent progressive releases, most of them being somewhat challenging to the casual listener, Eyala quietly released an album that mixes some very heavy passages of thick guitar, playful and exciting synths, excellent vocals and some nice and strategically placed jazz passages to create a more accessible, yet extremely interesting release in their album 'Awaken'.

After taking several years to solidify their band line up, founders Edgar Butanda (keyboards) and Pavel Vanegas (bass) started working together in 2012. They soon recruited Roberto Cervantes (drums and Juan Prado (guitars) to make up their instrumental line-up. Fast forward to 2017 which is when they found their vocalist in Erick Moral, and the intriguing and worthy instrumentals met their match when the vocals were recorded and added to the music. Everything was finalized and the debut was finally released in April of 2019.

What they ended up with is a nice, sometimes complex, and always well-balanced album that incorporates dynamics and variety throughout. It is most surprising how both the keyboards and guitars in the tracks are both very strong and solid, one never really out does the other, but both bring a level of perfection to this music. Yes, there is some growth that can be done here, but this band shows an extensive amount of promise and each track here has something to offer to everyone.

The album starts off appropriately enough with the solid and heavy guitar on 'Eyala Mount', a track that will definitely capture your attention from the outset. The structure of the songs is anything but traditional as the verse-chorus structure is not prevalent making the music sound quite original. Right away, a listener might argue that this sound more like Progressive Metal, however, as the song continues, you will notice the perfect balance of keyboards that exist in the music. 'Sentiment of Praxis' is a perfect example of the amount of talent this band has as the music flows easily from complex metal sounds, almost, but not quite, reaching extreme status, but with clean vocals, only to quickly turn to and more loyally follow a more Heavy Prog style with swirling and cascading keyboard riffs and synth solos, and suddenly falling feet first into some jazz stylings, and in the meantime everything just sounds like it all fits together perfectly.

The vocals are decent enough, and Erick has a great range, but don't always seem as tight as they could, sometimes wandering a bit off key, but not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the album. Overall, though, the music could use a bit more tightening up, but for a debut album, this is definitely an impressive effort. There are plenty of excellent sounding solos through the album also, like the impressive guitar passage in 'Fiction' from Prado that cascades down like a million stars burying you under their mass while the drumming from Cervantes create complex patterns that make the complex meters flow along. Butanda also gets many chances to shine with his keys creating masterful solos and riffs as in the tracks 'Eyala Mount' and 'Reflection' but also matching the guitar as they trade off or share solos in 'In Glorious Ignorance', and even taking time to create a nice pensive piano solo that morphs into an orchestral effect in the second half of that track.

The two things that I would like to hear the band improve on is in tightening things up a bit especially between the vocals and instruments, and also emphasizing the bass a bit more as it never really seems to stand out on this album that otherwise gives every other player moments to shine and stand out. Obviously, the band is creative enough to definitely be in the running for 5 star efforts in the future, and they definitely prove that they are a band to follow and watch for. Now that the band is complete, this should give them opportunity to create a cohesive feel among them that will rival bands that have been around for years. This is a strong 4-star effort. Let's see how they use their talents to progress even further in the future by experimenting a little more with their sound. As for now, they come very close to making one of the most original sounding and dynamic Progressive Metal albums in 2019.

TCat | 4/5 |

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