Band:
Gordon Tittsworth (Vocals, Rhythm & Bass Guitar, Keyboards)
Dennis Mullin (Lead Guitar)
L. Dean Harris (Piano & Keyboards)
Chris Lucci (Drums & Percussion)
Discography:
Sunlight In The Spirit (2006)
Chapter I (2001)
Guests:
Info
Produced by Gordon Tittsworth & Chris Lucci
Engineered by Gordon Tittsworth at Astral Sun Studio and Chris Lucci at Venus Studio
Mastered by Erik Zimmermann
Released 1/3-2011
Reviewed 25/9-2011
Links:
imagesofeden.com
myspace
nightmare
'Rebuilding The Ruins' is a 74 minutes long conceptual album, and all of you familiar to my reviews know that already in that you might have ruined it for yourself in my opinion. If an album should be this long it better well be damn good also! Otherwise this reviewer releases his evil demons that blows fire through dragons in their mouths and burns everything possible to burn. But before I get to the quality of this album I'll just say that this is the third album of this American Progressive metal band. Unfortunately I haven't been able to hear anything but the two songs on their myspace that is picked from their last album before this but as far as I can tell from them, 'Rebuilding The Ruins' sounds like a big step forward.
Overall I'd say the album sounds really good. Not a fantastic production, despite the band and their label pushing for that everywhere they can, but it's good and in the different songs there's variation, depth and width. The sound is grand all though not crystal clear all the time but it's possible to play the 74 minutes in one line without getting that agonizing head ache you get from badly produced albums where it's like getting suffocated and strangled. Here it's a clean sound, though not completely clear and polished. The vocals is where I have my biggest issues. I know Gordon Titsworth is a highly regarded vocalist and his qualities shines through from time to time but most of the time I get annoyed at how nasal and strained he sings. I also get a bit annoyed at how they've doubled and sometimes even tripled these vocals, which makes all the vocal parts have this annoying echo-alike noise and that's not really what my definition of good vocals reads when you browse the dictionary of Caj Källmalm. Once would have been enough and in my opinion it would have been better to use voices that are completely different if they wanted to double and triple the vocals, and in some tracks they have actually done this and that really does the job much better than this leach of echoing annoyance throughout almost the entire album!
Regardless of what I said above, I actually don't find those 74 minutes too bothering. For sure, I would have liked it more if they'd trimmed it somewhat, but the length is no big issue. Some of you might say - hang on! When you reviewed Nocturnal Alliance you said there was no purpose of an album this long since you can't really play it to the end anywhere and they are not too far apart soundwise. Sure, I said that but this album is more inviting to play also in the background and the production is better as well so it's clearly easier to play even when you don't set 1 1/2 hour aside to play the album and do nothing else. I find these songs rich and varied in themselves, all though I have some problems separating them from each other since their characteristics are pretty similar and in an album with 11 songs covering more than 70 minutes this usually have the effect that they merge together a bit. But even after six months of playing this album, I don't find the album very repetitive and at least that should be good news. However, I don't find the album overly progressive according to my book. But I guess that's a question of definition, because I don't really find any of the similar bands being that either. So that's my definition.
'Rebuilding The Ruins' is a good album and it maintains an evenly high level throughout the entire album without exposing any obvious faults or shortages. But it doesn't really show anything that's mindblowingly good either. Fine but not fantastic at any point. In the end I find the most fair grade to give Images Of Eden is a sting four out of seven and looking to the reception of this album that seems to be fair as well, all though compared to other reviewers I've set my grade unusually low. But looking to reception of fans and sales figures it looks like the others have praised the album a bit exaggerated rather than me being ungenerous. However, this hasn't affected by grade at all, I better make that clear. What I do think is that this album may very well be the start of something really good for this band, if they only could release their albums more frequently than with five years apart. There's definitely a hole where Images Of Eden have established their sound and I really hope they are the band that fills that hole and becomes the next big band within their genre and if they only continue like this - I'm sure they will!
HHHHHHH
