Release Date: September 6th, 2011
Reviewed By Evelyn Miska Krieger
Hailed as a supergroup, Eye Empire bestowed their first album with the rather grandiose title, Moment of Impact. Unfortunately, the impact that the album makes isn’t necessarily a good one. Sure, the band members come from groups such as Dark New Day and Submersed and the album features contributions from two members of Sevendust, but the reality is that the album is one cliche after another and the sound is dated, offering nothing particularly new to listeners.
“I Pray,” like all of the tracks, is intense, growly and heavy, but every song seems like it’s already been recorded by someone else. The lyrics are often cringe-worthy and lines such as “raging fire consumes me, melting flesh to the bone,” are completely lacking in poetry. Sure, you’re in torment, but your lyrics are putting me through hell. “Idiot” is no better: “You think we’re just idiots, I’m so sick of it. You’re pathetic, condescending tone, you think we’re just idiots…why don’t you leave us alone.” The worst part is that with lyrics like this, it comes across like Eye Empire thinks their listeners are idiots. Definitely not the way to gain friends and certainly not a way to gain fans.
Things don’t get better from there. “Bull in a China Shop” succeeds only in that it sounds like just that: loud, discordant and unoriginal. “Angels and Demons” (shocking symbolism, oh wait, no it isn’t) subjects listeners to the unoriginal chorus, “can you be my angel? Demons want my soul. Be my angel…come save my life, my soul.” Unfortunately, Moment of Impact just keeps going from there for another seven tracks.
There are almost too many moments to count on the album where the sentiments are so trite that one has to wonder if they were actually written in earnest or if there was some sort of lyric mad-libs that they used to come up with such lines. But then to add music that simply isn’t interesting enough to counter those writing problems, Moment of Impact never actually finds that one moment.
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