Album Review: StormbounD - December

I nit-pick. I know I do, and maybe I shouldn't, but I can't help myself. Something about my brain sees something that looks off, and I have a hard time letting it go. Such is the case with this new album, where I'm confused why an album called "December" is being released in the middle of summer, but I'm also quite bothered by the band using an upper-case D at the end of their name. I don't get why the weird spelling. It won't even help with search-engine-optimization, so all it does is drive me nuts.

That's all unimportant, I know, but there is something to making a good first impression. The band and album's names are the first thing I knew of StormbounD, so if that was to raise more questions than answers, it starts us off on a weird footing.

When the album gets started, we're greeted by "Desert's Roar", introducing us to the band's symphonic metal and vocal blend. The orchestrations are a supporting player, popping up to give added color to the songs, but not driving things beyond the band's talents. The blend of Yael and Ofer's voices digs into the 'beauty and the beast' roles, trying to keep the songs from becoming too light and pretty. I'm not sold on his harsh vocals when they pop up, but his deeper clean tone works as a nice balance to Yael.

The band writes solid hooks, giving every song a strong melody to latch onto. The problem is that they almost use their success in that regard as an excuse for going the wrong direction in other places. The verses of "Sacred Lies" are awful. The guitars are trying to be thrashy, but they have too much buzz on them for the picking to be clearly heard. Ofer barks his way through the verses, with no melody to his delivery at all, caught in-between a scream and a growl. It's an uncomfortable sounding version of harsh vocals, and there's no way the song can recover. It was painful to listen to.

The ballad, "Away From Here", is definitely better, but even it has flaws. Yael's voice is the face of the band, so to speak, but she gets relegated to second-fiddle status on the song. There's also the fact the song is supposed to be a sweeping ballad, but it just doesn't hit the kind of emotional crescendo that pays off the build. They have heavy guitars and orchestrations, and yet the song doesn't come off 'big' enough.

As we listen to the rest of the album, the takeaway is that this is a debut album, for all that means. The band is clearly trying to find their footing, and they don't always have the necessary traction. There is talent here, as many of the hooks will show, but the whole package is needing a bit more polish. Personally, I think the harsh vocals are the first thing that need to go. The band is trying to prove their metal cred a bit too much, and those vocals aren't done well enough, or interestingly enough, to sound like a natural and necessary part of the music.

And so, StormbounD falls into the category of bands with as yet unrealized potential. I can definitely hear a bright future for them, but that will depend on what lessons they take from the experience of making this record. The pieces are there, but they have to figure out how to put them together. This version of the puzzle is as yet incomplete.