THE LAST OF LUCY... I'll admit, I love that band name. I also like their debut LP, "Asvattha's" cover art and the band's overall theme. It's a mixture of science-fiction and mythology, which I think is an awesome combo, and I think that it fits the Tech-Death genre pretty well. As for the music itself...It's um...quite alright.

I guess I'll take a more polarizing approach and look at every aspect of the record that I find relevant in music. First off, vocals. Well executed, simple, and somewhat typical for the genre. Josh De La Sol gives a fairly versatile and in some parts REALLY intense vocal performance, all while not possessing much of a unique technique or style.

As for the songwriting, it's overall really solid, just not something I could listen to regularly. The band incorporates a lot of Tech-Death "clichés", but mostly leaves out the most important ones - the weirdness, the unorthodox approach, the oddness. For me, Tech-Death should be a bit uncomfortable and very hard to get into musically, especially with the guitar work. But on this record, the only song, which is probably my favourite, that has that UMPH weirdness to it in a relatively original way is track No. 2, "Chapter II: Odyssey"; especially how the song doesn't have a legit ending and just breaks off in the midst of all the brutality, and that one move perfectly embodies Tech-Death for me.

Other than that, the only oddball thing (that's actually pretty unique) the LP has to offer are the occasional Jazz saxophones, which come in on the slower, clean guitar parts. Those parts are definitely the highlight of "Asvattha". The usual Tech-Death parts (which take up about 70% of it) are executed well enough, but that's what they are...typical. And because of that, I don't feel like this album is anything special, or better than the title of "above average". I'd say listen to it a few times, mostly for the clean parts, but other than that, in my humble opinion, THE LAST OF LUCY would be much better as a Jazz Fusion band that incorporates elements of Metal into their Jazz-based music, rather than the other way around.