I am back with another five discs for your pleasure. This week, as with most, it's a mixed bag of material ranging from the alright to the really rather smashing. A couple of new albums, an older release I missed, and a reissue.

CD Reviews

Echoes of Eternity: The Forgotten Goddess

This is a bunch of Americans trying to do the female fronted progressive goth thing and beat the Europeans at their own game. The band really works quite well on this disc, but there is really nothing that jumps out at you and blows you away. "Voices in a Dream" and "Expressions of Hesh" are a couple of tracks that do seem to stick after a few plays. Musically it's rather modern riffing metal with touches of Dream Theater and the added twist of a sweet voiced songstress. Some of the European purveyors of the same music seem to work better with female vocals than this lot; their vocals can seem to be a bit too lush and fluffy, without enough oomph behind 'em.

This is a decent album, just not yet to the level of some of the similar style coming out of Scandinavia and Italy. One thing that can be said about this lot though is that they are not by any means Evanescence-clones preferring a goth metal, as opposed to pop edge, with plenty of blast beat drumming. The album is just missing that something I can't quite put my finger on, which is a shame.

Khigh: Wise Hedonist

A re-release with bonus tracks of 2005 album, this one never really took off for me. I think it's very much the case of the irritating lead-singer that puts one off. I found myself looking forward to the end of the CD, which is never really a good sign, now is it. The musicianship on this CD is competent, if nothing special, and a bit directionless. There is nothing on here that would really have me coming back to it. The bonus tracks are nothing terribly special either. Let's hope that this band is going to get things sorted, ditch their singer, and actually get some decent songs.

Masterplan: Aeronautics

This lots debut I absolutely adored and am still returning to it for a listen. Of course with the combination of two parts of Helloween (ex) and the vocal miracle that is Jorn Lande, how could you possibly go wrong? Well Masterplan has suffered a bit from the sophomore slump producing a patchy follow-up that does not hold a candle to the debut.

There are some great songs that really let Jorn rip, like the power balladry of "After this War" and the absolute class of "Black in the Burn." When this CD gets going its pretty impressive but there are just some songs that do not live up to the band's normally high standard. A bit of a nice surprise is the bonus track "Treasure World" which is a quite good one has to admit.