Fruit too sour to swallow
Fruit Tree's mix of light harmonic melodies and grating metal vocals have cast this normally orderly and clear reviewer into a vortex of disillusion. It's very, very difficult to tell if the resulting sound of this album is intentional or not. There's some pretty clever stuff on here, 'Asylum' definitely lays down the law as far as ability goes - this band can make some good music.
That's why I found it so difficult to review this band - because having heard the first track I knew they could pull out something pretty special but it feels as if they almost couldn't be bothered. For one thing, 'Hymn to the Archangel' is absolutely terrible, there's no way around this. Kate Molt's horrendous voice sounds horrendously flat, especially nowadays compared to the likes of Tarja Turunen, Kim Goss and Sabine Edelsbacher. Now, you might argue that's not fair because Nightwish, Sinergy and Edenbridge are going to have more production potential than Fruit Tree, but one comparison of Molt to Season's End's Becki Clark leaves me a little bit irritated.
Also, after the opus of 'Asylum', there's nothing that comes anywhere near to this. For a band with three guitar players, there's no guitar domination over the music or even any sort of complexity, which is infuriating after the excellent start to the album.
Overall, after Asylum, only 'I am the white wizards' comes anywhere near the paramount plateau the first song set, and after that the album tails off, which is a damn shame since there is potential here. Let's just hope Fruit Tree jump out and grab it quickly.