AGHORA — Formless (review)

AGHORA — Formless album cover Album · 2006 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Negoba
Good, but could have been so much more.

I got this group on various internet radio Prog Metal mixes and became addicted to the song "Fade." This track included some jazzy clean guitar along with a nice tech-metal crunch. With Sean Reinert on drums, I was hoping for a great jazz / tech metal feast. But the album doesn't live up to what it could have been. Clearly this album is the child of the guitarist Santiago Dobles, and for the most part everyone else is challenged to hop aboard the train if they can. Reinert succeeds but everyone else seems to either be simply in lock step or holding on for dear life.

Certainly, the jazz chording puts this album into a pretty narrow group of bands. Middle Eastern influences are also found here and there on the album, most prominently on the sadly brief intro and outro tracks. I was hoping for more of that ethnic feel incorporated into the music, but for the most part this is pretty straight female-fronted technical metal. In that sense it suffers from what many of these acts do, which is lack of melodic sense. Which is not to say the singer doesn't have a good voice, but the vocals seemed tacked on the top of songs that were already composed.

The technical chops of the Dobles are quite impressive. The jazziness of the leads add a very good flavor, and I like the leads here as much as Symphony X. The riffs are fine, though nothing outstanding, and the guitar tone is typical for genre but not my favorite. The rhythm section is solid.

Overall there are some good songs, but a sameness to the album that I've only listened all the way through once. I do have "Fade" on several playlists and enjoy the more exotic tracks. Also, as a guitar player, it's always cool to find a new shredder who's actually got something interesting to say.

Good, but non-essential describes it well.
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