Time to kick off another discography, this time yet another band that seems to get a lot of hate here, not sure why, also don't care. Welcome to the discography of
Artiste: Kamelot
Nationality: American
Album: Eternity
Year: 1995
Label: Noise
Genre: Progressive Metal
Tracks:
Eternity
Black tower
Call of the sea
Proud nomad
Red sands
One of the hunted
Fire within
Warbird
What about me
Etude jongleur
The Gleeman
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: I have all of Kamelot's albums
Interesting factoid:
Initial impression: n/a
Best track(s): Warbird, Fire within, What about me, Etude jongleur
Worst track(s): Black tower, Eternity, Proud nomad
Comments: There aren't that many bands who I got into via their debut, unless they're newer ones, and so it was with Kamelot, which is just as well, as had this been my initial impression of them I doubt I would have gone any further. The difference changing their singer two albums later made it nothing short of amazing. I personally don't like Mark Vanderbilt; this album and the next one which featured him makes it seem as if you're listening to a whole new band by the time
Siege Perilous comes around. Even now, there's little from this album I will give the time of day to, but it is as always interesting to see how the band began, and how their sound changed over a relatively short time.
In some ways, this album is closer to thrash metal than progressive, and the title track and opener certainly demonstrates this. There's something I really don't like about Vanderbilt's style of singing: I'm not sure if it's his propensity to throw in wails and go a little off-key a lot of the time, or his attempts to emulate Dickinson (which does not work), but the rest of the band work hard to compensate for him, with a nice sort of dramatic little guitar passage thanks to creator and driving engine Thomas Youngblood, but the song is basically pretty throwaway. “Black tower” is worse, one of my most disliked Kamelot songs, while “Call of the sea” at least gets into the swing. Mind you, it's not that much of an improvement. I remember listening to one of their live albums and the tolerant, polite applause that greeted this song tells you all you need to know about early Kamelot.
And so it goes. “Proud nomad” has a chorus that doesn't scan --- too many words jammed together --- and sounds like “Red sands”, “Red sands” sounds like “One of the hunted” ... in fact, the only tracks that really break the basic mould here are “Fire within”, “What about me” and, to an extent,"Warbird". It's certainly true that once all songwriting duties were handed over to Youngblood Kamelot's lyrics improved in leaps and bounds. Here, he writes only the music while drummer Richard Warner looks after the lyrics, as he would on the next album before his final departure for the third. And was he missed? Well, with lines like
”Oh black tower, what is your power?” I think we have our answer.
It's probably not fair to do down this album so badly, as I am; it's not that bad, it's just that, considering what Kamelot would go on to achieve this is very poor indeed, and is in no way an example of their best work. They found the winning formula in 1998 and retained it for seven albums, until 2010, when vocalist Roy Kahn left the band and since then they have struggled to replace him, as evidenced by 2012's depressing
Silverthorn. “What about me” is one example of when they rise above mediocrity and give a foretaste of what they could and would become; even Vanderbilt puts in a great performance. “Etude jongleur”, though less than a minute long, does highlight the acoustic guitar skills of Youngblood, but then they blow it by ending on another generic track, and “The Gleeman” does nothing to help close the album on a strong note, kind of undoing all the hard work from the last three tracks. Oh well, they would get better.
Overall impression: A poor start for a band who would go on to be so much better in time.
Hum Factor: 5
Intention: n/a