Review by Sonny for Lovebites - Awakening From Abyss (2017)

First thing to note is that I didn't completely hate this. Yeah I know, no one was more surprised than me, but I was swept along by the obvious enthusiasm and energy of the band and kind of went along for the ride. The speedy riffs and shredding solos are pretty entertaining, the riffs to both "Scream for Me" and "Burden of Time" for example stood out as being much heavier than I would have expected. Vocalist Asami is a big plus, sounding both melodic and reasonably powerful, although I am not so keen when she reaches for those really high notes and becomes a bit screechingly ragged, although this seems to be a feature of power metal generally that I just can't get to grips with. It is power metal after all so, of course, it is larger than life and over-the-top with keyboard overlays and some layered backing vocals, but not in a terribly cringey manner, ultimately being more operatic than pantomime. I do think that the album runs out of steam after "Burden of Time" and tracks like "The Apocalypse", "Inspire" and the godawfully balladic "Edge of the World" (the album's nadir for me) sound more like the kind of power metal that I struggle with.

Look, in truth this isn't going to break into my top 500 (or even 1000) metal albums and I am unlikely ever to pass this way again, but while it lasted I found it entertaining enough and I got through the whole thing pretty easily without a single skip and remarkably few cringes. In fact, if it had ended with "Burden of Time" I would have thought even more highly of it. Damning with faint praise then? Yeah, probably, but for me and power metal this was an untypically positive experience with the guitars and vocals being sufficiently impressive to keep me on board and to allow me to forgive the album its other obvious excesses, not least of which is the ear-batteringly, over-compressed mastering that makes it feel like it is being rammed into your ears with a steamhammer - and not in a good way!