CRISES - CORAL DREAMS - 2009

German metal band Crises - Dominik Eckert on vocals, Ondrej Hurbanic on guitar, Pavel Hurcik on bass, and Thomas Abts on drums - has been around since the mid 1990's and up to now has released a couple of full length albums plus a pair of EPs.

I sadly haven't heard any of their previous work, but Coral Dreams sees the band heading down various avenues in the rock and metal landscape. There's Dream Theater-esque prog, Brainstorm-style power metal (with vocals achingly similar to Andy B. Franck), alt-metal of the style Avenged Sevenfold pedal and more. This is an album that keeps you guessing from start to finish.

The performances are first class; there really is no doubt that these guys can play (and sing). Ultimately, however, the songs in the most part aren't strong enough. A lot of the album is good, some of it is great, but not much of it is exceptional.

'Joan' is a fine effort. The prog-infused 'The Chase' is technically impressive. The soft 'When You Were Gone' offers a different angle to view the band and it works well. Final track 'The Blame' has some monster riffs which it would have been nice to hear more of. The remaining songs are, as said, all okay but they tend to float past rather than stop and shake you.

Coral Dreams is an easy album to like, but it just doesn't tick enough boxes for me. It's worth having a listen to this band on their MySpace site as Crises may well float your own boat, even if they only vaguely float mine.
http://www.rockrealms.com