Colombian project a.Lostfield was formed to experiment by mixing different music styles and influences. I have to congratulate the band, or project, for being able to create music, that actually is a bit different from anything else I've heard.

a.Lostfield perform some kind of dark heavy metal with quite a lot of non-metal influences. Hard rock, industrial music, progressive rock, jazz and shoegaze can be heard during many a song. While songs can be catchy and interesting at times, the fact is that the vocals ruin about everything. Why? Because for a big part, vocalists (there're two of 'em) cannot find the notes they are aiming for. It all sounds extremely shaky. Plus, sometimes vocalists are trying too hard to sound angry, failing miserably. Their voices are just out-of-tune and weak, not forgetting extremely strained. Okay, the music is a bit too varied for my liking, e.g. the closing, jazzy song.

The production is quite weak, too. The use of drum machine, which by the way is pretty well programmed at times, beat-wise, but the sounds are preset crap. Guitar playing is varied, but more biting sound wouldn't have harmed anything. Keyboards aren't too typical, bringing in interesting bits.

Being the first effort from the band, this has some potential, music-wise, but there are a couple of things that should be fixed: The vocals and the production (including drumming). The vocals make this totally unlistenable for me, I'm afraid.

Rating: 4 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
05/24/2010 20:14