Slovenian metallers Skyeye are back with their third album New Horizons (July 19, Reaper Entertainment).
Opening track The Descenders begins with a sick riff and some tinny-sounding drums. I’m not too sure on the drums but I am sold on the riff. As the vocals kick in, I’m definitely reminded of Iron Maiden but I immediately prefer Skyeye to Maiden. The vocals have a very glam metal sound. The riff during the instrumental is just sick and I love it!
The chorus of ‘Fight, fight, fight. Now we must fight’ in Fight is very catchy and would be great live.
Railroad of Dreams had an interesting opening few seconds before kicking back into this glam heavy metal.
Saraswati’s opening instrumental is mellow and almost haunting. It’s the longest song on the album, clocking in at just over eight minutes. We get the calming instrumentation for about a minute before it kicks into the metal riffs and drums with a ‘where is your God’ scream. It is a good track and it mixes up the sound a bit which I like in tracks of this extreme length.
By contrast, The Emerald River is the shortest track on the album and it is just over a minute of orchestral music which really switches things up and brings a special atmosphere, almost of anticipation. I would hope live, Skyeye uses this as their entrance following release.
There’s something that I absolutely love about New Horizons, and that’s the guitar work. All of the instrumentation is great but I am particularly drawn to the riffs.
The one downside I have is that a lot of the tracks sound very similar which after a while tends to lose me as I prefer variety. But I completely understand why Skyeye will stick to what they do best. I can definitely see this going down well on main stage at Download in the future.
The album is well written and each song is tight (the drums sound way better after the opener).
If you’re a fan of the 70s/80s heavy metal sound then this is definitely one you’ll like.