Soundgeist -
The Fine Line Between 


(CD 2009, 47.42, MP & Records MPRCD 054)

The tracks:
  1- New Millenium Babylon(4:32)
  2- Narrow(4:38)
  3- Death Kiss(4:52)
  4- Insanity (part 1)(6:49)
  5- Insanity (part 2)(10:59)
  6- Divine Light(7:22)
  7- New Millenium Babylon (extended version)(8:28)

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Soundgeist is a progressive psychedelic band from Greece (Crete) formerly known as Devil’s Interval. The band was formed in May 2004 by founding members Emmanouel Zografakis (lead and rhythm guitars) and Antreas Anastopoulos (bass guitar). In 2009, the line-up had been completed with Stelios Kanitsakis (keyboards), Panagiotis Mavrakis (drums) and Dimitris Skourtis (vocals). The name of the band is a merge of the English ‘sound’ and the German ‘Geist’ which means ‘spirit’ in English.

New Millennium Babylon is the heavy opener of their debut album The Fine Line Between. We hear screaming vocals, pounding, aggressive drums and synths sounding as a bad copy of DreamTheater, Vanden Plas or Pain Of Salvation. On the second track Marrow, we hear again a lot of shouting and singing out of tune from Skourtis. I’ve got no idea what he’s ‘singing’ whatsoever; his musicality reaches an alarming level here. In the third track Death Kiss I can’t perceive any improvement: the songs and the lyrics are both simple and very predictable. However, Insanity part 1 is a much better song with some good acoustic and electric guitar solos without the furious drums and the terrible vocals, but alas, the end-section is again screwed-up by the screaming voice of Skourtis. Insanity part 2 is slightly better mainly because of the lacking of those irritating vocals in the beginning of the longest track of this album. The middle-section sounds quite jazzy and quite good, but the end is spoiled again by this non-singer Dimitris. Divine Light is disappointing as well; it’s a kind of ballad, but ruined by heavy rhythms and ugly screams. I couldn’t hear any musical logic in this so-called Divine Light. The final song is a copy of the first track New Millenium Babylon, but this time it lasts over eight minutes with nervous guitars, ugly screaming and irritating drums. What a nasty surprise this is! Some badly played Eddy van Halen guitar licks fail as a dessert at the end.

Gee, I’m glad there’s always an end to every album and luckily all modern CD-players have a skip key... I’ve heard it all before and far, far better. This is just musical diarrhoea. Well, if you want your mother-in-law to pay you a short visit then play this one. Success guaranteed!

 * Cor Smeets (edited by Peter Willemsen)

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