DEAD NATURE - PURE IMPRESSIONS - 2005

Dead Nature is a Brazilian metal band whose material touches upon both progressive and power metal. By power metal, I am referring to the more aggressive bands rather than the happy Euro power metal acts though. Still, there are moments, particularly in the vocal department, where these similarities come really through, except that the vocalist of Dead Nature has an overall more aggressive approach to singing.

Pure Impressions is their debut and consists of nine tracks, most of which are rather lengthy. Actually two of their songs, "A Life Goes By" and "Dead Nature", are around the fifteen-minute mark. However, whether these songs will hold one's interest from start to finish is arguable, as I feel they could have been a bit shorter. Reason being, after several listens, the band's songwriting direction becomes quite easy to grasp and slightly predictable. They usally start out throwing some heavy guitar riffs that would appeal to fans of both The Warning era Queensryche and the already mentioned power metal bands. The guitar work is raw and crunchy, but the production could be better in places. It is usually backed up by pounding drum and bass combination, and highly aggressive (albeit a bit short of range) vocals. While singer Marcos Frejat is competent and has a good voice, he tends to try the high notes more than necessary, and clearly, his range won't allow him to hit them all the time. Ironically, his more laidback, clean singing is amazing, but these parts are few and far between. On the first song, "Fall Down On Your Knees", Frejat sings in a very high tone, perhaps to match the speedy riffage and neoclassical shred fest of guitarist Daniel Croce. It isn't until the amazing synth break pops up where the rest of the instruments are reduced to the background that he opts for a more clean yet confident singing. It is a lot more effective and fitting to say the least.

Keyboardist Daniel Melo is easily the standout performer on this disc. He utilises a wide range of synth sounds from complex counterpoints to shredding lead solos. There are several unison leads between him and guitarist Croce, the ones on the neoclassical "Why War?" and "Birds Of Prey" being the best. Actually on the latter, the due trade off leads, and play off of each other. This is also more on the power metal side given Frejat's vocals. On the eight-plus-minute numbers, Frejat also does some spoken parts, as on "No One Cared", a song with cool keyboard effects in the intro and hard-rocking guitar crunch. The other piece, "Nightmares Of An Endless Winter", starts out slowly with clean acoustic guitar notes and then a fluid lead tone. This is a quasi-ballad and perhaps features the best vocals on the album. The guitar solo at the end is truly impressive. Sadly though, the material is simply too long and doesn't lead to a climax. Perhaps they could try to hone their sound and add more variety on their following release.

Overall, Dead Nature have released a solid piece of work that will appeal to Symphony X, early Queensryche, Fates Warning, and Crimson Glory fans, but with an added vibe of aggressive power metal in the mix. With fuller production and more punch in the rhythm department, and most importantly more fitting vocal harmonies, they could be a lot more successful.
http://www.seaoftranquility.org