sons of seasons gods of vermin

Released: 04 May 2009 Label: Napalm Records

Sons Of Seasons is a new band formed by multi-instrumentalist Oliver Palotai who has played with the likes of Kamelot, Circle II Circle, Doro and Blaze himself and here he’s gathered together a group of musicians that between them have been in the likes of Blaze’s backing band, Firewind, Brainstorm, Silent Force and Metalium as well as several songs featuring guest vocal appearances from Oliver’s girlfriend – one Simone Simons of Epica fame.

As some of you may already have guessed Gods of Vermin isn’t the most guitar heavy of albums and is largely dominated by keyboard and vocal melodies. Perhaps ironically though it’s the songs that do feature the guitars more prominently like the heavily Evergrey influenced Dead Man’s Shadows and standout track Fall of Byzanz and that have the sense of drama and ‘epicness’ (for want of a better term) that you feel Oliver was trying to achieve with this album.

In all honesty the rest of the album is quite patchy, the ballad Wintersmith is excellent with Henning Basse and Simone’s voices intertwining wonderfully well in a song that sounds like a cross between a Nightwish ballad and one of the acoustic versions of Epica songs from that band’s 2 Meter Sessies release but several of the songs just drift by without notice and I don’t feel the somewhat over-polished production helps matters. I’m all for music sounding as good as it possibly can but there can come a point where there simply so much studio sheen that the songs struggle to escape that and develop their own personality and I feel Gods of Vermin would benefit enormously from allowing just a bit of grit into the mix.

As it is Gods of Vermin is a promising debut with a few very, very good songs but Sons Of Seasons certainly aren’t the finished article yet. Definitely one to watch out for in the future though.

by Neil Woodfin