ERA VULGARIS

Stylistically the music on "What Stirs Within" is an eclectic size. It´s basically a contemporary form of heavy metal with raw vocals (and clean ones too), with a few nods toward technical/progressive metal. The 11:15 minutes long instrumental closing track "Imram" even features a post rock influence, so naturally the music style isn´t easy to define.

The material on the 8 track, 55:08 minutes long album is decent, but seldom really great nor is it that memorable in the long run. What I remember most about the album is the technical parts in "I Must Have Your Brain" and the above mentioned "Imram". The remaining part of the album goes by without leaving much behind. It´s not as such bad quality material, but it´s certainly not top notch ditto either. The sound production is very thin sounding and the guitar tone has an odd sound to it, so it´s at most of a decent but not great quality.

The musicianship is for the most part solid enough, and especially the raw and aggressive vocals are pretty convincing, but the clean vocals are not that well performed and sometimes even sound out of key. Another issue are the guitar solos, which sound uninspired. Why even bother putting a solo down on tape, when you don´t have more to say than the case is here? So there are definitely some issues which keep "What Stirs Within" from getting a high rating. In fact "What Stirs Within" pretty much leaves me cold, and a 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.