Acelsia-Quietude

Self-produced
2010

Norway's Acelsia formed in 2007 and have knocked out several demos and been including on a few compilations before knocking out this EP. They are a female fronted gothic metal band that attempt to splice in various musical styles into their sound. I played this disc several times trying to be fair so let's throw the positives out there first. The music does actually make an attempt to blend in various styles including hard rock, classic metal, power metal and even doom metal. Considering three of the four songs are under five minutes in length this band really manages to fit several styles into fairly brief periods of time. For the most part the music is interesting at least it is during the times there are not vocals. Okay now for the parts that I couldn't take on this album. Outside of the quick riffs early in all of the songs and the overall decent solos, the rest of the music is bland when the vocals are going on. Any energy seems to dip down as they settle for a mid-tempo style that drifts along with the vocals. A bit of a letdown on every song. The vocals themselves revolve around soprano female vocals which dominate most of the time and belching grunts which pop up occasion too. The main vocals are in tune and I hate to say I have heard this style before, but I have and with far more emotion. While not bad these vocals do little to elevate the mood or build on the energy I felt early in many of the songs. Even worse is the completely unnecessary growing style which actually served to annoy and distract me. Any mood that was established was thrown off track when these growls came on. "Quiteude" is definitely an album with some real moments, but most are in the music so I hope they keep building from there and possibly evaluate what is and isn't working on their music.