He also uses a few decent male vocalists: Antti Railio from Finland, Nahor Andrade from Brazil, Victor Rivarola from Argentina and Fabio Lione from Italy.

If you can’t get some good music out of this lineup, you really need to look into another profession. The Infinity project has produced several CDs, not all of them fully released but all of them outstanding. The title under review here, Wizard, was the first major effort, released in late 2000. It is entirely a studio project although there have been limited live performances of the music using a variety of musicians. Principle vocalists on this title include Tarja Turunen, Sabine Edelsbacher, Candice Night and Fabio Lione. A host of featured musicians perform as well, many of them quite well known as in the case of guitarist / composer Lanvall from Edenbridge who wrote lyrics for one of the songs on this CD.

Technically, the CD is an EP although it does cover 8 songs. The title song, Wizard, is done three times, each somewhat differently. Individual songs are covered by the previously mentioned Tarja, Sabine, Candice and Fabio, with one track being an instrumental featuring Beto and several instrumental musicians. The amazing thing about the vocal titles is that, although there is a featured singer, you can have any and all doing backup. When was the last time you heard a top female vocalist working with Tarja Turunen as a backup? You get it here.

The intention of the multi cultural cast was to increase the international visibility of the music of course. The majority of Beto’s musicians are Argentinean so there is already a strong presence from South America. Candice is American and the rest tend to be from various locations in Western Europe and South America. Of course, this leads to significant technical problems, which, these days tend to be solved with technical solutions. In other words, many of the musicians never interacted with Beto in person, not a novel approach in the industry today and something we are seeing more and more of as the technology improves. In fact, according to interviews with participants, they often don’t know how the tracks they forward will be used in the final product before hearing it in finished form.

The CD begins with Wizard, one of the three interpretations of this title, sung by Sabine Edelsbacher of Edenbridge. The vocals are true to the Edenbridge sound and what one would expect from one of the strongest vocalists in Female metal. The background, however, is pure Beto Vazquez. The drums are provided by Jorg Michael and they are superb. Beto provides several components; he’s involved with base, rhythm and acoustic guitars, plays keyboards, writes lyrics and does programming for higher end production requirements. The list of participating guitarists is too long to go over in full, however, be prepared for some excellent work in this area on all titles.

The second title, Until Dawn, is covered by Italian vocalist Fabio Lione often associated with the Luca Turilli project Rhapsody of Fire. Rhapsody is a similar kind of music, utilizing many of the same themes as Infinity and Lione is a vocalist with a considerable following. No death metal growling here, this is a top tenor with a significant range and technical level of skill. There is a strong orchestration here, and interesting tradeoffs between the keyboards and the guitars. . .all supporting one of the major voices in metal. If you’re at all familiar with Rhapsody you won’t be disappointed here, there is the feel of a male opera singer doing metal to a fantasy theme and story. Beto, of course, expands the metal offering a bit over the Luca Turilli approach, different but equally appealing.

Sadness in the Night follows, and the vocals need no introduction. This is Tarja, a voice known intimately to the vast majority on this site. And it is as strong a performance as any Nightwish song, over the distinct Beto Vazquez background. As a full production effort, this may be the highlight of the CD, or maybe it’s just a measure of how much I like Tarja. Either way, the completeness of the work is something to behold. Tarja’s voice, both as a featured component, and overlaid, is vintage Tarja. The orchestration is solid and the featured guitar segments provide a glimpse into the strength of Beto’s magic with the acoustical guitar. Lyrics point to the direction of the musical themes:

Candice Night provides the principle vocal for Promises Under the Rain. Her vocal style is a little different than the others, but no less attractive. For those not familiar with her vocals on Blackmore’s Night, she sounds a little like Stevie Nicks from the old Fleetwood Mac group. The song again provides opportunities for the various guitar leads to shine and they interact with Candice nicely. It’s an American vocal sound, over a South American musical background.

Beto Vazquez is a South American sound; the acoustic guitars are the first give away. However, it is a metal interpretation of that sound, with an international troop of marquee vocalists and musicians. It’s pretty hard to imagine a stronger lineup to present one man’s interpretation of a musical style. And the music stands on it’s own, even forgetting the strong musicians presenting it. Lyrics are interesting, musical themes are dynamic and have something for pretty much every listening taste. And, given the utilization of technology, the new Infinity releases can be expected to be every bit as entertaining as this one. This is the future for music, and we are all the better for it. The hard part is figuring out which song you want to listen to most. One could certainly find less interesting problems to deal with.

9 / 10