Eden AD hails from New York City and one look at the Myspace page of this five-piece reveals that they’re heavily influenced by (European) melodic death metal acts of significant fame. But if you list In Flames and Dark Tranquillity as your musical influences, how original can your music be?

Fact of the matter is that the music isn’t original at all and it doesn’t pretend to be. The band incorporates dark elements into grooving, melodic death metal. The recognizable harmonized lead guitars over grooving riffs are omnipresent. With the usage of these leads comes the issue of melody. I sometimes had the feeling that when these lead guitars needed to bring melody, they could have done so a lot better with more support from the rhythm guitars.

Even though the melodies Eden AD use may not be as memorable as those from their influences from Europe, ‘Murder Ballad’ immediately reminded me of Dimension Zero. The aggressiveness with which Eden AD shows they actually can make good use of those harmonized leads was a pleasant surprise. Where the combination leads-rhythm seems uncoordinated in other tracks, they succeed wonderfully in ‘Murder Ballad’, ‘The Icarus Factor’ and ‘Lost Eden Chapter’.

Melo-death warriors that usually complain about the god-awful clean vocals; eat your heart out. There are no clean vocals featured on Cycles Of Relevance, so quit your whining. Even though, in my opinion, melodic death metal needs a certain amount of quality clean vocals, Eden AD have made the right choice to not use them. If they had, comparisons would turn into copies.

All in all, Cycles Of Relevance is a decent record. Although the production is a little raw (especially on the drums), the New Yorkers deliver a believable debut-album. Definitely worth a shot if you’re looking to expand your melo-death collection.