Independent Release
Review by Tony Cannella
Astral Tears are a melodic metal band from France who also features influences that range from progressive metal to modern metal and even touches of thrash. Their debut album is titled “Hypnotic” and is currently available.
Astral Tears cites a wide array of influences from Dream Theater to Killswitch Engage and Lacuna Coil. After the intro “Rebirth”, Astral Tears dig in with the monstrous opening riff to “Hate the Enemy” – with a title like that you might expect a heavy song, and you’d be right. This song chugs along like a runaway freight train and lead vocalist Beyza presents her vocals that are reminiscent of Cristina Scabbia from Lacuna Coil. Musically, I would say that Astral Tears features a style similar to Lacuna Coil. The songs are presented in a mostly straight-forward, melodic and heavy approach with plenty of crunchy guitar riffs. “Sinner” follows and this is the song that band filmed their first video for. This is more of a mid-tempo track, that still possesses heavy riffs and was a good choice for first video, but it really could have been any number of songs on “Hypnotic”. “Desire” is next and features an Arabian style fused some metal parts and plenty of tempo changes, this song is pretty eclectic and shows that the band are not afraid to come up with something a little different in a metal setting. The next song “Behind the Curtains” also would have made an excellent choice for first video (maybe the next one?), the song starts off as a ballad before getting progressively heavy and the machine gun style riffing near the end of the song is just simply killer. Astral Tears manages to combine heavy guitar riffs and tempo changes with Beyza’s silky smooth vocals, some examples of this are: “Back to Life”, “Obsession”, “My Reality” and “End of My Story”.
With a 46-minutes worth of playing time, “Hypnotic” is a strong debut from Astral Tears. The songs have a definite accessibility to them and their appeal has the ability to be far reaching.
Rating – 85/100
Tracklist
- Rebirth
- Hate the Enemy
- Sinner
- Desire
- Behind the Curtains
- Back to Life
- Obsession
- Tell Me Lies
- Awake
- Forgotten
- My Reality
- End of My Story
Line Up
- Beyza – Vocals
- Max – Guitars
- Will – Guitars
- G Rem – Bass
- Jelly – Drums