This album is as honest Metal as it can get. Not superb, surely more than interesting but - most of all - definitely honest. Kranking guitars, sharp solos, assaulting drums, roaring bass and 'traveling' vocals. ENDYIUM is a quartet (or - as we speak - trio temporarily, looking for a new drummer?) hailing form Canada (Ottawa) and it's old news this distant (to many) country has been certified as one of the most cherished ones when it comes to truthful music (genre free).
Metal Temple magazine had reviewed ENDYIUM's 2005 self-titled demo CD and, truth is, it was not to tricky to evaluate their quality from back then. With the band - centered around singer/guitarist Nate LeGault-Roth the last decade - working their asses out to compile this first 'normal' CD album, the first impression is nothing less than thumbs up! by looking to the swaying cover artwork; the colors are a success and the artwork in general (booklet, images, texts) unveils a band willing to fix up a professional 'structure'. Hell yeah, that's the way Eye Of The Storm shall be treated by any Media/fan.
Working  - for two, at least, years - to come up with Eye Of The Storm, ENDYIUM should be overall proud of their creation. The album consists of ten songs of average duration, making it up to a total of something more than 47 minutes; 47 minutes of classic Heavy Metal, drawing inspiration from the glorious 80s but nowhere near to be treated as a 'paying tribute' CD. The production and the bass/drums tempos are relative to the classic riff-full straightforward Heavy Metal likes but the guitars - while rolling ahead the pre-mentioned forms - do upgrade the whole result due the thrilling work being credited to the axemen pair.
There's a parade of al things Metal in the CD's guitar parts. From the generous Hard Rock neatness to (even) the thrashin' Metal lunacy while lurking in the classic Metal 'nest', the riffs and the leads are of immense presence and shall nail you down to the ground with tons of crunching assault and steel governance. Both LeGault-Roth and Regnier fight till death in dual work, with inspiring 'epic' melodies/harmonies and smart fills that do not let any song fall short of interest. All the above, building up a stable set of metallic conceptions drawing influence from the mighty NWOBHM movement (ANGELWITCH, BLITZKRIEG), the force of Sweden in the old days (e.g. PARASITE), Canada's prime movers in the 80s (e.g. BLACK KNIGHT), a taste of American hardrockin' metallum (Randy Rhoads' OZZY, early RIOT, untamed BLUE OYSTER CULT) and - to an extend - the malevolent pieces of early METALLICA's/MEGADETH's 6-string vagabondism. OK, the IRON MAIDEN 'ghost' is floating around, as well.
The voice of LeGault-Roth is an interesting piece, too. He's melodic enough, with narrative/theatric parts in his singing, trying(?) to picture out specific schemes of grandeur. He does fit great to the music, he does not exaggerate that much in screaming out (Kick It Down excluded, haha!) by mainly focusing on the mid-range requirements for making atmosphere. Really good vocals that fit the music, indeed, by providing good weapons to lyricism. You may notice some of Brian Ross and Kevin Heybourne or some of Ozzy's patterns (not the timbre). He does not sing as a straight-ahead rocker by any means; the music is much more than this, in detail.
Drawbacks can sum it up to a tendency in preserving a relatively same tempo in the first half of the album, while the production does not give 100% justice to the songs' value due to a partial lack of volume; not to forget, there are rare times the vocals are tiny out of tune (I think). The above comments do not - in any way - omit from Eye Of The Storm's price; a self-financed CD showing how the hell Metal music is to be played. As soon as the album's out (mid March 2009) fans of traditional Metal music should surely grab the chance and own a piece of frank work by some high-spirit metalheads. ENDYIUM are blunt with you; can you be the same?