Ecclesiastes once said 'There is nothing new under the sun' (1:9). Now that I've got your attention, we'll get back to this later. On to the business. THE DIAPASYN's first release, "Repercussions", fails to deliver a basic portion of exciting music, yet does manage to sound bearable enough, for you to not throw it out your window. The issue's simple- this sounds pretty much like everything you've ever heard before.  While the band defines itself as a progressive, Hard Rock, experimental-Fusion-something, all true, it manages to sound boring. Sometimes highly banal, the album stands without genuine uniqueness. Oh yeah, except for the vocals. Unfortunately, that's another problem. While I strongly support gender equality, and think women should take a hold of as many positions as men in any reformed society, I strongly oppose bad singers. Despite of supportive feelings for any metal act that has a female vocalist (especially this week right?), I feel obligated to say that this just doesn't work.

While the music isn't actually that bad, at most times its overshadowed by the unripe vocals. It would remind you of maybe DIE HAPPY, GUANO APES, and GARBAGE, on a bad day. This really just doesn't work for me and Its hard to tell if the vocalist is even able of performing anything impressive. The band on the other hand does sound good, less progressive in the sense that it really isn't that - it's more like a laid-back MAIDEN, fast and quirky at times. I'm more than sure of the entire band's members' abilities to do well, since the writing itself is fairly decent and interesting at times. Unfortunately at most times it's just not exciting. Some cool heavy riffs that definitely draw their influence straight from the progressive cannons, followed by interesting guitar solos, and keyboard harmonies. This is all too fairly impressive solid, and on the contrast its sometimes awfully cheesy. The vocals grab your attention to divert you from the instruments - and then its hard get a good sense of what could be done here with better production, significant mature writing, and tighter performance. On that note, there's one thing that when overdone, just seems to lose taste - double-bass. THE DIAPASYN 's drum beast, Leigh Leavitt, manages to remind at times early INTO ETERNITY, or even ICED EARTH. But the point is, having the ability to sound like Hellhammer does not mean you should always try.

I truly gave this one too many spins this week, trying to find anything that I could have lost track of, and I feel I should advise anyone looking for rich, complex, intriguing music, to search elsewhere. And why ecclesiastes? Because for upcoming artists that sentence is a myth that desperately needs to be busted. And because now you've at least learned something useful from this review.