Review Sacred Legacy - Undying Heart 2011

This band comes from a rather unusual place for a metal band, same place as band I recently reviewed called Tormenta (which I did not quite approve in my review). The place I am referring to is The Maldives a place more known for the beaches and tourists I believe, but maybe that environment in the sun is a growing ground for metal bands. The album is called Undying Heard meaning it is an album with a cliché name, the band name is also quite cliché if I’m honest but then again that might not really mean anything anyway. It is also a reissue of an album that was released back in 2008, maybe as a teaser for the band’s coming album called The Legacy Begins which is due this fall.

I think musically you can describe this band as something of a chameleon, they do vary their music between aggressive thrash/death metal and some instrumental parts. In fact they alter between these parts so it is one type of music and then another through the eight tracks of the album. The vocals parts is best described as a crow with a very sore throat, the singer sounds very much like that actually and the vocal parts are also rather stereotype if you discount the female vocals of the finishing title track. The instrumental parts of the album are quite complex with pianos, neo-classical arrangements, they also break off quite a bit from the tracks with vocals even if they are the melodic kind of extreme metal as well. In most part the sound and production is good or at least adequate for what they are, the melodies of the songs are well brought out. The drums however do sound a bit strange at some parts that does not really make any sense, I would believe this is a problem with the production of the drums.

I think the album starts very well with a good melody and then it was ruined by an ill crow, the real good thing about this album is the instrumental parts as these songs have some nice melodies and ideas. The ending song is also a nice touch, it is a good song and a good ending and it is a rather decent album as well but it is ruined by terrible vocals which is really something I hope the band will have changed for this upcoming album.

It is not only the vocals that are the problem of this album either, it just feels incoherent with the songs altering between aggressive extreme metal tunes with crappy vocals and the instrumental parts that range from nice clean rock guitar and piano stuff which just breaks way to much from the rest of the album, it shows that the band have a melodic sense but it just does not play well with the other part. It is almost like they have taken two different EPs by two different bands and put them together altering between the songs of the two, it just feels wrong. And then there’s the drumming which is odd in some parts ruining parts of otherwise nice melodies with stupid monotone drumming and base drumming that sound like an earthquake or something.

The band needs to fix the vocals, the drums and they need to think a bit in symmetrical terms making an album that actually feel like the songs on it belongs together. I tend to like complexity and varying music but this album is not it, as it feels more like two albums than one as I explained earlier and it is a bit sad as you can hear that there is talent in the band, they have a melodic sense and some of the material on this album is quite good.

For me this ends up being a good album let down by terrible vocals that are so bad that even Takida sound better and by some small niggles in the production namely the drums which I just never can understand, in track two they are really annoying. Then there is the problem with the songs and the structure of the album which does not work at all. If these problems are addressed then I think there is a great possibility for their beginning legacy to be really interesting. Now it is a barely approved album with some brilliant parts and some less than terrific vocals.

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Sacred Legacy Undying Heart

Sacred Legacy
Undying Heart