Andromeda
Shock

Andromeda is the name of many things, one of which is our nearest galactic neighbour. Far away from us of course but still, there is also a progressive metal band from Sweden with that name. Moreover, there is a sci-fi television series that ran for quite a few episodes with that name. And now we also have an Italian metal band with that name, it is that quartet I am to look at now. Their debut album is called Shock and it has a shockingly ugly cover artwork, musically it can either be shockingly good or shockingly bad. Yeah sure, it can be something in between as well.

It is heavy metal, plain and simple I guess you could say. No shocking musical revelation here, maybe not much of a surprise there to be honest. Though I think that we can clearly state that the use of Italian lyrics is a bit of a shock as that isn’t very common with such a thing. Musically there isn’t much that sets them apart from other similar bands but the italian lyrics is a differentiator. They have also managed a particularly good production where they balance rawness with melody. This is a very strong production, quite impressive in several ways. And even though they are not revolutionary in style they do know how to make a short and to the point album which has a fairly good variation over the album’s nine tracks and just short of 40 minutes of music. You will not grow bored with this one too easily.

Andromeda from Italy makes a good debut with this album, it has all the ingredients of a strong heavy metal album. It also has the added bonus of lyrics in an obscure language that seems very well suited for this kind of music. Quite impressive indeed although I would describe them as a bit cautious, I would have liked them to thread down some paths that are a bit less travelled. Nevertheless, it is a solid debut, they push all the right buttons as I have already alluded to. I can also add that the album has no real weak point, no turnoffs so to speak. It has some strong points though.

The strongest point being the ending track which is quite excellent in many regards. I also think that the title track Rock Shock is impressive, so there are some really lovely highlights to this album which all in all is a very solid and very strong debut album. Clearly this can be seen as a sign of something really exciting to come from this Italian band, hopefully they stick with Italian lyrics in the future as well. So, for all you heavy metal buffs out there, this is one for you to look closer to. It has some merit that makes it worthy of a look.

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