AUVERNIA is a very powerful and energetic Argentinian Heavy Metal outfit, combining Power Metal, Thrash Metal, Black Metal, latin and progressive Metal elements together with shredding neoclassical guitar and keyboard solos. The vocals are both clean and brutal and their technical level is pretty high. The surprising fact is that, despite the many changes in every song, everything is done in such a careful way that the final result flows perfectly well.
The record is produced by them and the engineering, mixing and mastering by their drummer and - as a matter of fact - the overall sound quality is both good and crushingly heavy. However, I couldn't help noticing some mistakes e.g. that in Interludio No 5 the clean guitar sound is quite more treblie than it should and - most probably due to having been recorded with an electric guitar with low action - it has some fret buzz they should have avoided. Be careful guys, because in such a professional work these specks seldom go unnoticed!
An other drawback is the lyrics,whose quality in my opinion is pretty dubious and they are a bit poor on the whole, failing to escape the power metal lyrical cliches. On the other hand, they fit the music pretty well and are sung in the catchiest of ways. I should also add that Mr. Varela's accent is quite convincing, with the exception of The Show Must Go On cover, the latter being the weakest moment of an otherwise really nice,varied and rich sounding record.
This band does have a great potential.