Watcher’s Eye Ep – Eng version (text and review by Daniele Dominici, translation by Laura Dainelli)

3068_logoThe emerging world of the underground- you know- is a perpetual stormy sea. Alternate excellent experiments to hyperbolic ‘epic fail’ structural recordings or final products that sometimes border on the reasonable limit of amateurism. Across the Channel parameters are not different : what I mean is that if the criticism has often focused too hard on the missed talents around us instead of the talents, in other countries, too, given the realities also wider, it can really happen to listen to any type of musical nuance, even that one that makes you pleasantly astonished.
Here we find the Watcher’s Eye case, considerable extent from the United States : five musicians proud to join forces in the Seattle (WA ),leaving their hometowns, including Chicago , Long Beach and even the (so european !) Monaco of Bavaria.
Despite the fact that Seattle area has tended to be considered – during last years, in particular from 90s – musically branded with precise sketches characterizing, now please forget plaid shirts and hair carefully disheveled . This would immediately easier if you browse the biography of these five young Americans (mean age enviable,almost all of ’96 ) . Starting from this point, everyone reading can easily understand immediately that their musical project is ambitious and disconnected from the cities they belong to.
Firstly, an appreciable point consists in their choose of a so niche genre, the Theatrical Metal, which is adopted as a breakwater idealistic,in contrast to the linearity of a genre often squeezed and seen by many as too ‘old-fashioned’,His Seniority: the Heavy Metal . The boys in question come from the macro category inextricably just mentioned , but without drawning in it uncritically .
It is important to underline that the best to judge these underlying Watcher ‘s Eye would be attending a live performance of them, in order to grasp fully the theatricality, in fact, this first effort of the band active from 2011 stands out primarily for its technical expertise put on display by the young members , almost to want to present to the public with a business card challenging but very much in line with the actual caliber of the band.
Scrolling through the six tracks on this Ep, it is not ever likely to turn up their noses for a riff or too bold for a battery since inexplicably odd . The base created by Michael Vanson (singer / founder of the group) & Associates is, for all intents and purposes, really well-executed. If anything, it may be doubted the repetition of certain intra-sounds, the uncertainty of some vocals (in Forgive Me and All the Empty Spaces at times the voice of Vanson is almost begging ), but it is undeniable, and of stronger impact, the creed of the Watcher ‘s Eye is professed with strength and not only for the poetic manifesto feared the mainstream media : the violence of the scores of the U.S. band wants to be at the service of melodic lines given with full knowledge of the facts, confusing the listener until his curiosity definitely lead the way.
Returning to the influences, we find small drafts grunge scattered here and there, even if objectively in a totally unconscious expression. It happens to bump into depressed chords in the first few minutes of Forgive Me or the more general similarity between the visceral stamp Vanson and Sully Erna of Godsmack post- grunge (at the time already slyly approached the chord of Her Majesty Layne Staley ).
The substance remains quiet stable : a metal fast till you drop , chiseled melodic parts here and there winking , whether it be of two guitars (if we were to make a comparison , we would choose probably Avenged Sevenfold) or the versatile Vonson, able to pass as a tightrope between powerful growls , moans and roars worthy of a singer Thrash Metal. In summary : Do not condemn the Watcher’s never to have plagiarized in any way some artist’s most renowned , if anything for the actual validity of the writing -process.
The battery , in spite of a sound to be reviewed in the study, is punctual and clean ; Nattie Scareless directs operations in a way quiet hard to find in a seventeen boy. The hitches are really rare and Nattie wins the first test of professional recording with extreme ease. The rhythm section played by the rest of the components, Joey Kacey (young guy passed skillfully from the study of bass to guitar, with results of a clearly high-level ) and Nick Noir (German boy, the only European origin of the group), it is without infamy or praise and helps to give a full-bodied absent in many other debuts journeyman in the early years, not peers.
The most incisive piece in the Ep looks the first track called Under the Knife. It looks like a ride, limited mosaic proposed by the Watcher’s, between accelerations Dragonforce style , melodic singing son of the aforementioned Post Grunge American guitars and whistling that hold the band beyond the line between heavy metal and even more extreme genres. All this is topped by sudden headbanging riffs and carpets of double -chest thumping.
Another positive side of this project is that every sin is a clear counterpoint : the singing of some silly songs, as already mentioned, does not affect the final performance ever of Vanson that overall is convincing beyond all expectations , the guitars more tended to ‘pop’ hints in some points are well supported and balanced by so many violent lunges; then, the battery , as already stated , it is not sound to perfection especially in tom and chest (I’d never hazard the guess that it is the result of an accurate stylistic choice ), but the rhythmic line is overall timely and courageous in the scores, especially if we consider the age of the performer (peaks of quality in That Night).  551142_4769941827066_363092781_n
In conclusion, the future of US Watcher ‘s Eye would seem to go to safe shores of satisfaction. However, there are also considerations suggesting another side, less smiling, of the coin. If you doubt groups like the one just analyzed , to reflect on the potential of the ‘ kids ‘ of our house, hardly able to propose a package seventeen years of music so complex and well structured , it is important to assert that the speech in the American market could even capsize: in the land of the ‘ everyone can’ , a proposal like that of the Watcher ‘s Eye could make it difficult to emerge. Perhaps for excessive syncretism more ideas sometimes crammed with force in a dress uncongenial to them , either because of the kind that could possibly niche appear up to ten years ago (bands such as our own Rhapsody have built a career on it), maybe a project like this could be hard to take off. Anyway, this is just the darker side of the hypotesis, we wish differently to them, because they deserve to be known.
Beside, commercial speech is never a quid absolute record in the field and the solid body of the EP of this band is unquestionable.
So, now we just look forward to see a live show of them that can promise only sparks. At least.

Tracklist:

Under The Knife
Forgive Me
No More Heroes
That Night
The Weight Around My Neck
All The Empty Faces


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Laura Dainelli

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