One of the wonders of living in small society is, many obvious things could seems to be quite unique. The best example I can give, happens to be in our local scene is, SENSORIUM. Performed live on stage, in 7th of May, to celebrate the release of their debut album The Art Of Living at Levontin Club Tel-Aviv. SENSORIUM goes by Power Metal identification at their Facebook page, and in some other places by Symphonic Power Metal.

First of all, they're far from being just Power Metal, yes they have Power Metal as their main core genre. However, they remarkable and strange to the ordinary metalheads ear, strong and highly professional performance by the vocalist Kesenia Glonty , has stunned me, the girl is a Classical Opera singer, one of the kind that been hired by Symphonic Metal bands for the maximum epic atmosphere, it's not typical to have a lead singer at this level in a Metal band.
 

It makes me wonder, either it's right to mark SENSORIUM as a Symphonic band or not. My general opinion about Symphonic metal is identical to how others should be, simply by standing behind the word you spoken, if you say that your genre is Symphonic, you better bring the whole Orchestra, or at least record some classical instruments for the effort.
 

Not every band that have a keyboard should call itself Symphonic, not that my intentions are to mock Sasha - on Keyboard , in the contrary, he's a very talented and high skilled musician, it's just it doesn't seems that he is bringing Orchestra to a live through keyboard with his style. Therefore in my opinion, if there's a genre called Opera Metal, it belongs to SENSORIUM.
 

The performance itself was different from the last time I have seen the band, which was very energetic and fun. But this wasn't the case this time, although it was a debut show which should be festive and joyful, but there was some sense of awkwardness on the stage. Couple of errors that were made this show is in starting with the basics, Levontin is a tiny club and not suitable for 6 band members! The crowdedness on stage had a huge impact on performance causing the dense mood towards the crowd and made it awkward. The band members has barely moved except Kesenia who tried to warm up the atmosphere but without any luck, her voice was barely understood to its full potential caused by poor sound and bad acoustics.
 

The performance by the lead guitar Michael Timoshko was accurate and good, but he was focused most of the time on his own playing rather on what's going on on the stage or the crowd. Sasha on keyboards made an energetic and awesome show, it's a shame that the keyboards were standing in the shadow corner and it was impossible to feel his performance. Gilad Bardo on bass had a good and accurate performance also but stood stiff as a stump, from time to time it looked like he falls a sleep by closing his eyes.
 

All of those uncomfortable situations that occurred could be easily blamed by the clubs poor maintenance, Levontin is a good club for up to 3 players, for not too complicated music performances, for that, choosing it was a fatal mistake.
 

Besides that, there are some strong musicians in SENSORIUM, and there are some weak links that holds the band back. The performance by Carlos Bartov on drums was sloppy and offbeat from time to time it felt like he's constantly loosing his drum sticks. Anton Feldman on rhythm guitar performed like he was on stage for the first time, and felt so insecure. Even though that it might be his first time with SENSORIUM, he has to work on his performance and move more.
 

Another few things that bothered me, because of the contrast appearance between Kesenia and the other members,Kesenia's dancing and movement felt forced and unnatural. Looking deeply through the show, the dancing part is Unnecessary. The contrast between guitarists gear was very uncomfortable to the ear, while Anton plays the warm and full sound made by Gibson Explorer and his finger slips through the strings making the ear unpleasant, followed by the sharp and clear sound of Michael's Ibanez which diminished by the low sound. It could be a very beautiful scenario if the two yin yangs were balanced well enough and performed good.
 

In the bottom line, SENSORIUM is a very interesting band, playing Power Opera metal, and I insist to call it Opera! Have very strong musicians and rich music, however they don't get on the stage very often and that brings to all the newbie mistakes all over again, which can be fixed easily with hard work and dedication. Furthermore, this band doesn't get enough attention as it should, due to their unique nature they deserve better exposure and bigger crowd.