Bloody Kell
Now this is irritating. The potential here is absolutely collosal and yet for some reason it's never satisfied, and that upsets me greatly, because talent is there for a reason.
Starting from the top down, Keeling's vocals hark back somewhat to the day when lightning fast guitar skills made even the hoarsest of vocals sound angelic. Unfortunately for Keeling, his lack of any vocal talent is not masked at all by the guitar work and just leaves the listener irritated as opposed to interested.
The other fatal flaw in this album is the serious lack of variation or direction. Yes, the tracks are somewhat different and there's certain tracks that deserve a certain degree of recognition - "Rising of the snake" being the one that stands out, and yet the links between the songs are simply too strong to ignore - rather than taking the listener on a journey, telling a story or entertaining us, this album just feels like the record is stuck on loop after the first song and someone is screwing around with the equalization.
Yes, there is promise here, epecially the guitar work, some of which could almost hold a candle to Yngwie Malmsteem, but the seriously irritating noise that Kelly insists on shoving over the top totally ruin the album. If you want to hear astonishing guitar work with some properly sung vocals, Jimi Hendrix is still the man.