I’ll be honest here, I had never heard of Akoma before picking up this album. Being a fan of female fronted symphonic metal, I was looking forward to it.
It would be too easy at this point to compare this band to the plethora of similar bands and unfortunately, that’s what I ended up doing. The reason for this is that I don’t believe this release brings anything new to the party.
On listening to the opening track ‘Enticing Desire’ I feel like I am listening to an older Within Temptation song which isn’t a bad thing in itself but I really want to hear something new. The title track ‘Revangels‘ has a bit more going for it, with a strong guitar riff running through it, and a catchy hook which raises this track it above the rest of the album.
A highlight for me is toward the end of ‘Change of Propensity’ with some solid driving double kicks by the drummer. ‘Humanity’ harked back to the early days of Evanescence and songs like ‘Torniquet’. Musically I thought this was going to be the pearl in the oyster of this album, but the lyrics, for me, descend too far into the realms of cliche. “Kill me slowly so I can feel the pain” being the glowing example.
With the exception of these songs, I found the album to be quite a forgettable experience. I don’t think it is entirely the bands fault though, as I feel something has been lost in production along the way.
Tanya Bell’s vocals carry the album though and perhaps given decent material to work with, I think Akoma could definitely be a force to be reckoned with.
This is not to say that this is a bad record. If you’re a bit of a newcomer to the genre, then you could do a lot worse. But with other ‘tour de forces’ within the genre, (Epica, Delain, etc), Akoma need to energise their repertoire otherwise, they run the risk of being also-rans. Having been the dominating force in Denmark for so long, have they become complacent?
