Italy has been busy lately. Hailing from Catania, Italy BASTIAN are yet another new, up-and-coming Italian Heavy Metal band. "Among My Giants" is their debut release.

It's very hard to decipher this band from their album cover. It features a stone giant with a miniscule hooded human figure in the foreground (pretty self explanatory if judging from the album title). But then to the left, a very out-of-proportion random tree that looks like it was just placed there to fill up some blank space. When it comes down to the actual music of the album, it is exactly like the album cover... Messy and not very well thought through.

The first song on the album "Odyssey" starts off with promise. It features a beautiful traditional piece of music, quickly jumping into some riffage. But don't be fooled, this is the start of a long decline in both musical and production quality. Remember when you were a kid and you'd roll down a steep hill? This song and even the album in general is exactly like that. You start off feeling excited and you start to roll, you get about halfway down and you're starting to question your life, why did this seem like such a good idea? When you finally get to the bottom of the hill you're left dazed and confused. What the fuck just happened?

The production throughout this album is awful. The guitar tones are not very thought out, it makes it seem as though there is no talent coming from the guitarist, even though if you listen deep enough, there is an abundance of talent. The drums sound like they are coming from a child's drum kit. With almost every song on the album being five minutes or over, they try to do everything and it just doesn't work.

I just want to pick up the members of this band and shake them. Everything from the album artwork, to the production, to the song structure, "Among My Giants" reeks of mediocrity. With a little bit more thought and experience, they could have pulled this one out of the bag. But unfortunately, it fails to hit its mark.