Ivory Knight
Unconscience
5.6
Oh Jeff Waters what have you done now? Is this the rebirth of the Canada’s new wave of old British metal? I sincerely hope there will not be a string of copycat offenses but the one thing this release has going for it is the former Annihilator axe-man’s talented fingers on the mixing console. The mix isn’t fantastic but it does the music justice in a way that hints at a more antiquitous period of time without forsaking clarity in the low end frequencies. In essence, the only selling point Ivory Knight possesses over anything not already done in 1982 is their audible drum kit.
In most retro projects the passion performers must necessarily feel to take on the daunting task of beating the dead horse shows through at some point. Ivory Knight is no exception. There are flashes of brilliance every now and then but all too often they are spliced with catastrophe. Example: any time an interesting dual guitar lead comes into play it is usually joined by a horrendous flaky keyboard tone. The decision to make lead bridges a two man affair is bearable but most are suddenly cut off in favor of supremely awkward transitions back into whichever verse riff is associated with that particular song.
The style of songwriting in general reminds me of early Queensryche with a vocalist who sounds like Bruce Dickinson magically confined to his middle range. Both lyrical construction and technical flourishes used to separate one riff from another become extremely suspect at least a dozen times over the duration of Unconscience. Tightness starts with the drummer and this album radiates a feeling that everyone is consistently chomping at the bit trying to defy the man with the stick’s chosen pace. In summation; this release has just enough good material to keep it above the three point range. Throughout a complete listen, you can really hear the band struggle to produce even that pittance of not-crap. Part of me feels obliged to congratulate the band for giving it one more try but the larger and more reasonable part simply requests they put the instruments back in storage and concentrate on helping the kids with homework.
