Steel Cage - Obsidian
50%
In the ten years history of Steel Cage they managed to build up quite a name in the underground circuit of Italy. Outside of Italy Steel Cage wasn’t able to play themselves in the picture for any record label. Well maybe with their next album, Obsidian, which is some sort of concept album, they have the chance to grab the attention of a record label.
Like a lot of bands, Steel Cage starts their album with an intro. Also like many other bands nowadays that intro doesn’t add anything to the atmosphere of the album. I don’t know what the problem is with a lot of these bands, everyone thinks they need some sort of intro at the beginning of their album. Even if this intro is completely boring.
Well finally at track two, the album starts with a song that blasts immediately out of your speakers. With the start of this song I also notice the sound of this album is not so great, most of the time I have the idea there’s a blanket hanging over the speakers. Sadly enough that isn’t the only problem. The vocals are several times completely overshadowed by the rest of the instruments and the quality of the recordings from the instruments are also not great.
The Thrash metal played by Steel Cage looks a bit like the Thrash metal that is played by Dew Scented. It’s very obvious Steel Cage has a lot of influences of other Thrash metal bands in their music because I constantly have the idea I’ve heard it before. Of course it isn’t that bad when it’s combined with a good production. But with Obsidian that isn’t the case.
Of course not everything on this album is crap, the artwork and the enhanced CD part are well designed and beautiful to look at. But of course as we all know a well designed album has nothing to do with the music on the album itself. In the end Obsidian is probably not the album that will give Steel Cage the acquaintance they want. The music is not original enough en certainly not produced very well.
