New Eden

Obscure Master Plan (Nuclear Blast)
by Scott Hefflon

I had to shut this off while jotting notes. Enough is enough. Evidently, some guy started New Eden, joined Steel Prophet for a couple albums, then thought it’d be a swell idea to resurrect his old band. I disagree. See, here’s the thing, this just isn’t good. Allow me to elaborate. The singer: he misses notes. He’s flat a lot of the time. All the ability to reach them high notes and wild vibrato in the world won’t compensate for hitting the wrong freakin’ notes. That’s why we buy albums – we’re willing to pay someone who can sing better than us. The guitar: similar problems. Great solos and riffs, amazing technical ability, but, um, you’re out of sync and some of those wild solos aren’t in the same key as the rest of the song. The production (mostly on the guitar): sounds like any number of long-haired guitar geeks who jam like the gods in their bedrooms – flat, thin, crimped, and with no full-bodiness to fill a room (it ain’t about volume, it’s about depth). The songwriting and lyrics: hell, I can’t sit though anything long enough to get to that. I don’t say this just to be mean to one band, I say this because I’m surprised this record ever got this far. Someone somewhere along the line shoulda politely said, “You guys need more time,” thus saving me the trouble.
(PO Box 43618 Philadelphia, PA 19106)