Sometimes we get a new album release from a new “band” and as a writer, you have to make a little research to get to know a little bit more about the band, when they were formed, where  they are from and if they have any social media presence. Some bands are harder than others to find information and sometimes we are not able to get any social media presence. This is the case with ANAHATA and their only release, from what I could find, the album Syncretic Sovereign. I do apologize to our readers and I will buy you a beer if you can tell me what that title means since I have no idea. Despite the complicated title for an album, it was exactly the album title that helped me to find the little I could about this band. It seems that the band actually does not exist.

Let me explain, this is more like a musical project than a band. Jack Heath and Kyle Brickell, 2 guitar players from different parts of the world decided to share some ideas and files and a hybrid album was created with the weirdest name ever. The album has the famous instrumental opening before getting to the somewhat melodic speed metal with “Daybreak”. The ingredients seems to be all there, but the first impression is that something is missing. The guitars are tuned much like hard rock in the eighties meaning, a softer king of crunch. However, the band tries to mix the traditional metal style from the eighties and nineties with some speed and double bass madness like in the tune “Arc And The Arrow”. The singing melodies are not very captivating to my ears and they seem to be a little lost and repetitive. The singer Ioan Tetlow makes a good effort, but he has limited pipes for melodic parts. He can do some screams and some gutural, but the general melodic singing that I believe to be their intended proposal, is lacking.

The songs on this album are also very long. Around 6 minutes average and they add those long epic chords and some keyboards like in “To The Sea” … but wait! Stop everything! I started this review talking about hard rock from the eighties and nineties, then I mentioned speed metal, some guttural and keyboards. Sometimes a lot of sauces in the recipe may sour the dish.You need to be very careful not to throw too many things in the pan.There are some tunes that sound like pure no frills hard rock, and some tunes that sounds like epic metal with a lot of keyboards and speed added. They also like to add some boring “instrumentals” as in the beginning and now in the middle of the album. There is a tune called “Perihelion” that is literally 3 chords played on the keyboard in sequence until your ears bleed.

Why do I ask? The band has good tunes like “The Thunderer” despite the weak vocals and melodies that are not much captivating, and they should concentrate their efforts more into their melodies. The musicianship is quite good and some tunes have some amazing guitar solos from Jack Heath. The album ends with “Son Of Fate” that sounds more like a demo than anything else and for this reason is the best of the album for me.  Raw as it can be and with that impression that it was recorded in one take. Decent effort but I believe it lacks in a lot of aspects being the vocal melodies and performance the main one. You take a risk when you try to do an album online as you can miss consistency and the good old chemistry.