Sooty Limbs

This CD is a 4 title demo I received directly from Belgium. First thing that strikes is the production, that is really nice for a demo (maybe a bit low volume-wise). The second thing that strikes is the quality of the guitars, very melodic, reminding me Satriani (yeah again ;)), they envelop the music in the best of ways. Then comes the singer on top of the music, which is quite progressive and even strange sometimes, but for sure very original. Now what's amazing is that Nicolas Arnaud does absolutely everything, he plays all instruments (and with brio) and sings on top of it, unfortunately I must admit that I'm no fan of his vocals. But I believe he has what it takes to be a very good song writer and he is for sure a great guitar player. Some moments will remind me pop music , others gothic, sometimes atmospheric metal and the overall musical atmosphere sounds like guitar heroes stuff, the kind of music you usually don't put vocals on. I'd say that even if the demo shows a promising future, the songs needs to be produced and rework (vocally at least) to really become great songs and to give the band a plain, powerful sound. But again, the music is here, so are the ideas and the demo shows some moment of pure genius, like the bridge of the second song Blind Healing where the fantastic guitar riffs and the additional female vocals will almost hypnotize you and leave you begging for more. Beside that the female vocals alternate between good and pretty bad, that's also something that would need to be worked in the future I guess, actually I'd say that maybe simply finding a great singer (male or female) should do the trick. Otherwise simply make the music atmospheric instrumental as it is already very rich. A very good demo that shows an enormous potential for this musician. Although I couldn't really put up a style tag on it, but that's a good thing, it proves the overall is very original. Beside the weak vocals, I'm really on my knees when I realize that he does everything on the demo himself. So I'd like to personally thank him for sending me the demo and congratulate him for his work An impressive demo indeed (musically the best I ever received) !