THE TEMPEST OF THOUGHTS (E)

The Finnish band Kaliban presents on The Tempest Of Thoughts eight heavy metal tracks on the same label as Embraze, another heavy metal band from that country. Their music is in the vein of classic heavy metal with lots of familiar chords. The main composer, guitarist and grunt-voice is Henri Peltola. Together with guitarist Toni Ketunen, drummer Mertsi Helppi and bassist-singer Olli Simola they play melodic metal, but I think the grunt-vocals will scare off many lovers of the progressive or epic metal genre. Musically and technically, everything sounds quite okay and the many very melodic, sometimes even symphonic interludes and intros - thanks to guest musician Kirsi-Maria Helppi on keyboards - are certainly appealing. For reasons unknown to me the record was released in 2002, but the recordings were made back in 1998. In spite of the symphonic influences mentioned above and the tasteful artwork, this album is heavily dominated by the grunt vocals which I just cannot appreciate at all. By the way: the beautiful and too short intro Kaliban starts off with is not mentioned on the cover so in fact there are nine songs on the display of your player.