Sometimes, I set on a journey to find some new interesting, not so well known but more curious metal music. I bumped into the Italian label Cruz Del Sur Music, who have some avowed, but also some quite apocryphal names in their roster. Listening through the samples on the label's site, my discovery was Antiquus, who reaches from Canada's British Columbia.

'Eleutheria' means liberty and freedom in Greek language. The main ingredient of 'Eleutheria' is the story which tells about 15th century outer space expedition and its captain who faces a mutiny. No, it really does!!! At least the lyrical content is very much unique, eh?! The music follows lyrics closely, and moods change a lot during the peculiar story, so there's no danger of getting bored, or is there? Well, let's put it this way; the band haven't used all the prospect the story sets up.

So, Antiquus play narrative heavy metal. Their definite pro factor is their idiosyncrasy; they surely sound heavy metal, very North American branch of it, but the story centric still make them stand above so many faceless acts (like many of their label mates on Cruz Del Sur Music). And as the story is pretty epic, so is the music. Rough headbanging, acoustic passages, loads of atmosphere, and certainly no hit-fetching song writing. However, do not expect 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner' quality. Especially the longest song on the album, 'Part V- I'm Alive', is not too tight. So, the story is stronger than the music.

Vocalist Jesse White has, on the one hand, considerable pipes, as he sings with his pretty low voice and escalates into heights, but for some reason there's some off tune singing heard at times. If they are not off tune, which I really can't believe because of some fine examples, then they are simply badly written melody lines. Other guys handle their lots well. The sound is very organic. The mixer Larry Anschell, who has worked with Paul Rogers, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, so do not expect any kind of usual metal music production job here. Just turn up the volume, and feel it vibrate! I also must mention suitable booklet artwork. Nice work.

Antiquus' sophomore album leaves me a bit cold. Tighter song-smith is what I'd like to hear from them next time around. If only all of this was like 'Redemption'...

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
09/27/2008 13:59