Beto Vazquez Infinity - Self Titled
Beto Vazquez Infinity - CD Review
Self Titled
CD Info
2002
Drakkar Records
11 tracks
English lyrics
Drakkar Records
11 tracks
English lyrics
I have just this second finished listening – nay – trawling through the mire of sludge that is BVI’s self-titled album. I feel like Andy Dufresne having crawled out of that sewer into freedom from Shawshank Penitentiary. Beto Vazquez has been given all the right ingredients for this album. Unfortunately, they’ve been slung together so badly, or with such poor grounding, that the result is something that sounds like an 80’s power ballad band jamming with a group of hippies.
The idea is a good one. Guitarist Beto Vazquez gets together with three highly respected vocalists – Tarja from Nightwish, Sabine from Edenbridge and Candice from blehhhhh. With all that musical talent bubbling away the result should be great, eh? Yes? Not if you give them awful material to work with, it won’t. This album really puts paid to the idea of "it’s not the song, it’s the singer". In fact, BVI should be proud of themselves for disproving that theory. Because the songs here are so dreary, so musically stolid and unconvincing, that I’m surprised the girls weren’t falling asleep in front of the microphone.
The idea is a good one. Guitarist Beto Vazquez gets together with three highly respected vocalists – Tarja from Nightwish, Sabine from Edenbridge and Candice from blehhhhh. With all that musical talent bubbling away the result should be great, eh? Yes? Not if you give them awful material to work with, it won’t. This album really puts paid to the idea of "it’s not the song, it’s the singer". In fact, BVI should be proud of themselves for disproving that theory. Because the songs here are so dreary, so musically stolid and unconvincing, that I’m surprised the girls weren’t falling asleep in front of the microphone.
The problem with power metal is that it treads a very thin line between being epic and being totally naff and laughable. BVI could have done themselves a lot of favours if they hadn’t included that damn medieval flute, which ruins the album’s only potentially good track, The Wizard. As for the rest of it, I’m surprised Tarja and Sabine ever lent their voices to it, because it is thoroughly dull, tedious and uninspiring, not to mention a waste of plastic.
What amazes me the most about this album is the complete lack of irony this lot must have to produce material like this, or is it lack of shame, I can’t really work it out. Especially the little "Star Trek" feeling for Infinity Space. Come on guys, you must be taking the piss. The only reason people would write stuff like this is if they had covered every conceivable musical alleyway in their genre and were left with nowhere to go but self-mockery. The end product is therefore something as thrilling as a see-saw, as lively as a flat battery and as sexy as doing the foxtrot with your grandmother. Go your separate ways people, and be thankful.
