Review by Sagiv Shaniv

Artist: Sovereign Council
Album: New Reign
Label: Unsigned
Release Date: January 28th, 2013

Tracklist:

1. Down The Rabbit Hole
2. Sweet Poison
3. Bring It Down
4. New Reign
5. Dolos
6. Siren’s Song
7. Fractured Dreams
8. Reminiscence
9. Din
10. Moonlight

“Sovereign Council is a power metal band based out of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. With influences coming from every genre of music imaginable, our sound is something we’re quite proud of”. That is the band’s self-description on their website.

I have a slight disagreement with the saying that their music is influenced by every genre of music imaginable (I mostly hear symphonic and power metal and maybe a little bit of electronic music. Not much more than this).
Nonetheless, the genres’ fans will be content with this album.
The guitar leads perfectly fit the symphonic sound. The keyboard excels in transferring the emotions written into the notes. The drums keep the rhythm up and precise.
But it’s just not that. The mixture of the things listed above does not deliver, in my opinion.
The final product is one that has little focus, sounds confused and is rather raw.  It feels at some points as if the words sung are just a flow of words, with no train of thought linking them. It is clear that both vocalists are of high quality and talent, but the outcome is messy.

The album “New Reign” is a good album. It has fairly everything a symphonic metal fan would like to hear in his latest purchase. Yet still, the result is not sufficient. It is difficult to compare this work to those by bands such as Epica, Nightwish or Lacuna Coil (A reasonable thing, being an unsigned band). I guess these bands’ fans would have sympathy for this release, and perhaps it will make a comeback to their playlist once in a while.
I would like to hear more from these guys in a couple of years, hopefully with better production and sound, and less vague musical atmosphere.

(rating 7)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8gVb8nUJcU

Band Members:

Vocals – Alexander, Lisa

Guitar – Chris, Patrick

Bass – Shaun

Keyboard/Vocals – Jessica

Percussion – Arkadius