Eden's Curse - The Second Coming

Eden's Curse are an unashamedly 80's hard rock/melodic metal outfit consisting of Euro metal stalwarts  Paul Logue, Pete Newdeck, Michael Eden and guitarist Thorsten Koehne. Their debut album gained critical success throughout the melodic rock world, and was no.2 in the  www.melodicrock.coms albums of 2007. Can they build upon that success with ‘The Second Coming'?

Overview!

The dramatic instrumental opening ‘Reign In Terror' - with keyboards and effects aplenty - heralds ‘Masquerade Ball': a splintering pedal note 80's riff a la Ozzy and primetime Malmsteen announces their musical intentions with considerable aplomb! Stunning lead guitar from Thorsten belts in, and is a constant throughout the album. A cross between 80's heroes such as Jake E Lee, George Lynch and Yngwie -  with some of Schenkers melodicism thrown in for good measure - all backed up by world class chops and a great tone. This album should be required listening for all fans of high energy melodic rock shredding.

‘Angels & Demons' features the dulcet tones of Pamela Moore - memorably Sister Mary from the Queensryche ‘Operation Mindcrime' opus's - and tracks such as Just Like Judas, Signs Of Your Life' and ‘Ravens Revenge' are all graced with sizzling riffs and a super tight production courtesy of Dennis Ward. Much of  this is a text book aexample of this style of album. Riffy, epic in nature with large mass harmony vocal laden chorus's and lashings of razor sharp soloing, this is 1989 all over again - but with thee benefit of a tight, ballsy and modern production.

‘The Second Coming' takes musical references from bands and artists such as the aforementioned Queensyche, Malmsteen and Ozzy as well as 90's cult melodic rockers such as Ten and Balance Of Power.

From a guitarist's perspective I would thoroughly recommend this as an example of how to construct chop laden ‘shred' solos in a very melodic fashion: something of a lost art for many of the new generation of shredders. Vibrato, phrasing, tone and timing - Koehne has these in abundance - and it all makes for a very satisfying listening experience.

Conclusion

I can see this band being very successful on the Euro Metal circuit, and with the 80's hard rock being seen in a kinder light nowadays maybe even breaking out further than that. Having said that though, it is still hard to see this appealing to many of the new generation of metal/rock fans, but for melodic rockers of a certain age this should provide a very enjoyable purchase. If a trip down memory lane is it for you this should do the trick nicely!