Esoave - Esoave

Year of Release:
Label: Independent
Catalog Number: n/a
Format: CD
Total Time: 12:59:00

This band is probably best known as The Quiet Room's ex-drummer Mike Rice's new band. Don't expect a new The Quiet Room though, as the only thing these two bands have in common is the drummer and the fact that they both play progressive music. Esoave is a five-piece fronted by the talented Marilyn Taylor and they have just released their debut 3-track CD.

Esoave offer heavy, catchy mid-paced progressive metal with some nice semi-technical, atmospheric and laid-back verses. The keys are not very prominent, although they are present and interesting sounding, but overall the songs emphasize more on the guitars. Along with the present bass, there are some very tasty and cool drumming to be found. The songs are all very good and original sounding, and I absolutely love the laid-back/slow paced verses which has a lot of atmosphere and feeling to them, the tasty keys take effect here. The laid-back verses move over to more aggressive and up-tempo choruses which are awesome, and Marilyn Taylor offers some excellent harmony vocals. She has a great voice, coming off clear and powerful, with excellent technique. Hard to describe her voice, but she has a wide range and changes between mid- to high-range.

All musicians are very talented and competent. The production is clear and sharp, with all instruments present. Very good work for a debut 3-song CD. The songs have a clear melodic approach, although it took some spins to really get into this, but once you do, you get hooked. Their sound is pretty hard to explain, but someone mentioned that this sound like a cross between Charisma and The Gathering and I think that is a pretty suitable description.

Fans of prog metal should absolutely take notice of this band as they clearly have something going here. I'm really excited to see if they can keep up the good quality on a full album, but until then I will enjoy these songs. Worth checking out!

[Seems nothing more has materialized since this was released... nary a mention on the 'net 'cept for a reference to this review's original home at PPO (and now, not even that). Rice is now a member of Negative 4 (which, as of Aug 2005, split up before releasing a single album, though the music is presently (as of July 4, 2007) available as an MP3 download) -ed.].

[This review originally appeared May 2003 at the ProgPower Online review site -ed.]
Tracklisting:
unknown

Musicians:
Mike Rice - drums
Marilyn Taylor - vocals
(guitars, keys unknown...)

Discography:
Esoave (ep)

Genre: Progressive-Power Metal

Origin US

Added: December 18th 2004
Reviewer: Bjørnar Bevolden
Score:
Artist website:
Hits: 2369
Language: english