Orange Sky-Dat iz voodoo

Star City
2008

Orange Sky hail from Port of Spain, Trinidad and have opened for the likes of Skid Row, Hatebreed and Yngwie Malmsteen. This is primarily late 80's/early 90's influenced metal with tinges of hard rock and flashes of reggae thrown in on occasion. The first things that I noticed about this album was the fine production as the guitar often has a very rich sound to it. Orange Sky make a decent effort at varying the pace and pulling in different, styles, sounds and influences. I can hear some Scorpions, Guns and Roses and on a few tracks even some "And justice for all" era Metallica riffs crunching in there. The effort and the ability to take some risks are certainly here, but the knowledge of really building up excitement and their energy level are a bit more inconsistent. The end result is something of a mixed bad although it falls a little above average. Tracks like "Dark Room" and "Roses" come on and you just know that these guys have a firm grasp on where they taking these songs and just gallop forward taking you along. Other tracks like "Rainbows" and "Is there anybody there?" seem a bit more awkward primarily towards the middle of the track. There are several songs where they start out in fine form, but then try to change things up with that parts just tend to bog down the flow instead of making it more diverse. They have a decent grip on heavy parts, but not so much on melodic parts and sometimes transition between different parts seems a little rocky as well. The playing skill is generally high and that's giant plus, but their ideas and writing are not as stable. I think that there is enough here to build upon so hopefully they keep working at it.