Orchid's Curse is a Canadian based four-piece Melodic Death Metal and Metalcore act. Voices: The Tales of Broken Men marks the group's first full-length offering, a follow-up to their debut EP Goodbye Is When The Casket Closes, which was also released through Diminished Fifth. The band seems to pride itself on capturing the human struggle within the lyrics, and even the proper atmosphere in their music, and on this release, there's no denying the band had some great ideas. The problem is that some of these ideas are just not executed as well as they could have been.
Voices: The Tales of Broken Men has some pretty good music to it, and it's obvious that the group has some inspiration from Soilwork going on in the music most of the time, and even the vocals sometimes sound close to what would appear on an early Soilwork release, but they have a little bit of a more unique sound behind them that manages to seperate them past the coincidental comparison in the voice and even tone. Orchid's Curse manages to put together some fantastic tracks here that manage to capture the proper approach of the song's lyrics, such as "Let the Ashes Bury this Life", a song that brings a beautiful, yet somewhat down or mournful feel to the music at times. The track itself sounds full, solid, and has some great music behind it that isn't anything too spectacular, but manages to catch the listener with some hard hitting hooks that nicely portray the band's ability to capture emotion in their music. However, the amount of these types of songs wind up being too few at times.
The main drawback to this release is not necessarily the music, but the fact that sometimes it just sounds hollow, mostly when the music drops down in speed, technicality, or for a breakdown. When the songs are going rather fast with some heavy drum input, it's not too bad. "The Delicate Art of Dying" is an example of the importance of all the instruments, as there are moments in the song that feel hollow, such as around a minute forty into the song, which is prior ro the first breakdown. This section sounds a bit open due to the Melodic Death guitars being used that go simply as a lead, and clearly need more emphasis from the bass, or a backup guitarist. However, there are still moments on here where the music shows some more technical work in the guitars, and the drumming is more picked up and relies on a good amount of cymbols to fill the void. Sadly, this isn't the only example of this issue, as it appears through many of the songs on this release. The most obvious, however, wuld be "The Workhorse Walks Alone", which starts with a great guitar solo, but instead of a background guitarist, it relies on the bass, which isn't nearly high enough in the mix to really push the song along, and in the end it just sounds incomplete. Unfortunately, due to the riffs being used, as does the rest of the song, and not just that, but also like it doesn't really have any bite to it outside the Melodic Death guitars used for the chorus of the song.
Aside the hollow sound of the music on various tracks through the album, there also happens to be a few instrumentals on the release that don't quite work well for the album. "Above Moyobamba" starts off the album, but it sadly is a very generic sounding song, even for an instrumental. Given how the music on this release can sometimes fit an emotional tie to the lyrics, this instrumental doesn't have anything going for it as far as musical atmosphere goes, coming off very bland before "The Delicate Art of Dying" starts. "It Was the Darkest Day we'd Never See" is the next instrumental on the album, but at least this one has a hint of atmosphere to it, coming off as a dark and brooding song that sets, up the following track, "Let the Ashes Bury this Life", nicely. It also seems to usher in the better portion of the album. As stated before, "Let the Ashes Bury this Life" is a strong track for the album, and the following song "Shadows of Imitation" manages to work well for the album too with music that doesn't sound empty, a vocal performance that shows more effort then previous tracks, though much of the song winds up comming off a bit stereotypical, but exeecuted well with a breakdown that works for the song, and a guitar solo that sounds great and gives a bit of a delusional feel to the track as well. "The Animal" also makes for another great song, though the bridge around the four minute mark does sound a little hollow while the vocalist continues prior to it fully kicking in, erasing all emptiness to it to disappear because of the proper use of bass to back it up. There also is no denying that this track is like the three other's that followed and just has a very dark feeling to it, almost ominous in a sense, utilizing a stand out guitar riff that kicks off the song here and there in a manner that creates a haunting vibe to the start. Again, the music on this track is also not the most original, but it's at least well done and solid enough to stand out on it's own.
Of course, the closing track on this album bares the concept of the album's title. "The Voice" is technically split up into two sections, but it's all one song, and also manages to carry over the haunting vibe from "The Animal" and builds more around that for the start, which is primarily a guitar solo that lasts for two minutes, and is as impressive as many of the other solos on this release. The actual song kicks in around two and a half minutes, and it sadly just doesn't quite live up to the introduction that the solo gave off, leaving the hyped feeling that was created at the start mostly as disappointment, but mostly during the parts where the vocalist sings, with exception behind the bridge and guitar solo. This is simply because it seems that everything is toned down for when he kicks in, losing the rather unique and somewhat impressive elements of the song behind for a generic sound that suits the vocals, but causes the rest of the material to be lacking. Unfortunately, once that introductory guitar solo is done, there's nothing else too inspiring about the song, and Voices: The Tales of Broken Men ends on a bit of a sour note.
While the first full-length for Orchid's Curse isn't really the most impressive by the band, falling prey to many stereotypes and a hollow sound in the music at times, it's also not that bad a release. With two songs in the earlier part of the album, and all the songs after "It Was the Darkest Day We'd Never See" being very strong and somewhat impressive, with exception to the latter two thirds of "The Voice", there's still some suitable material on this release that shows promise for the band. If the group continues to write the kind of music that appears on this recording, however, it might be a wise decision for them to look into a second guitarist for the more lead only sections that seem to create the more hollow moments of this release, or at least focus in on filling those voids. Until then, Voices: The Tales of Broken Men is an alright album to go into, but it doesn't really have much of an appeal outside of a few tracks to have you coming back after the initial first few spins, and even then you'll be picking and skipping songs as early as the second time through.
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