Cav's Place

This is quite certainly this year’s last post in this series, and it’s the 11th, so I won’t get to 2021’s record of 14, but I did also have one that included five bands, which was also the case in 2021. This one will just include three, and it’s once again rushed, which should unfortunately go without saying, but at least all three bands are from the same country, Switzerland, they all have recent releases, and one is even an actual new find, since I had to search for a third band to add after finding myself discarding the third Swiss band that was on the list and had new material for good despite the interesting sound of their old songs, since the new releases had a lot of growls.

I’ll start with Illumishade, since happening to spot their recent release, Here We Are, among the recommendations, led to starting to write this post and look for other bands from the same country. Even if the voice itself could be better, there is something that I find particularly appealing in the vocal part, mainly in the chorus, and the instrumental part is nice enough as well, with the exception of those harsher moments, which really don’t seem to fit. So it’s unfortunate that those harsher sounds appear on many of their other songs as well, but Rise, which is my second pick, isn’t marred by them. They have some ballads as well, but I preferred Rise because the vocals seem to break on those. Either way, the part about the harsher sounds is a matter of preference and some may like those parts as well, and I found things to like in spite of them.

Next is Deep Sun, and they actually released another song earlier today, but I’ll stick with Eternal Love as my first pick, while For Eternity is my pick of an older song. Some may find that they don’t really stand out, but this is the sort of sound that I tend to be drawn to and in this case I definitely have no complaints about the vocals, nor about elements that don’t seem to fit with the rest. They’re a solid, competent band who seem to know just what they want to do and keep doing it well over the years.

As for the new find, that’s Green Labyrinth, who seem to have returned after a change of vocalist, their second album, released this summer, following no less than eight and a half years after their first one. I’ll go with Haunted as my first pick, since it seems to be put together better. The two other recent songs that I listened to gave me the impression of being made up of disjointed elements, even more so than in case of Illumishade, but that one shows some real promise, and the vocals are also quite good. On the other hand, if I’m to pick an older song, I guess I’ll go with the one that’s almost self-titled, The Green Labyrinth. That first album was obviously recorded in poor conditions and the quality of the songs also varies quite a lot, but you can notice the potential there as well, in spite of that.