Rockfreaks.net

Eden's Curse

The Second Coming

Written by: TL on 25/11/2008 13:08:22

The name Eden's Curse is born by an English band playing classic rock/metal, the debut album of whom I received for reviewing a while ago, through their label AFM records. By 'a while ago' I mean that it's been gathering dust on my desk for ages, due to AFM's highly annoying and utterly pointless habit of putting voiceovers on their promos in some sort of futile attempt of copy protecting them. I don't mean to offend Eden's Curse, but being as small a band as they are, with less than 4000 myspace friends and not even a wikipedia page to their name despite being on their sophomore album, I think it would actually boost this band's career if a few hundred people were to download their material. Instead however, all the voiceovers do is discourage me from listening to and promoting it, by committing rock-sacrilege, interrupting the band's guitarsolos and choruses!

Anyway, I'm done ranting now, so let's take a look at the album in question, the appropriately titled "The Second Coming". Appropriately because what up-beat music fans are going to think when they listen to it is that this band sounds like Blessed By A Broken Heart, except they're serious about it - As serious as you could only be if you were playing in a reanimated hair-metal band from 20-30 years ago. Drawing on heroes of the time, like Alice Cooper and Bon Jovi, the music of Eden's Curse is larger than life power-rock of the kind that could've all too easily been on the soundtrack for a movie like Top Gun (I'm thinking Cheap Trick's "Mighty Wings" here), and to be blunt, there is absolutely nothing new or original here to make the band relevant to the scene of today. Not that I think Eden's Curse really care, at least they seem to me like a band having settled with preaching to the converted.

If we forget for a moment though, that only people who can't get their heads out of the late 70's/early 80's will really be interested in this record for its nature, we should be capable of talking about the songs as a more separate matter. The reason for doing so is that, like many of the modern bands' albums, "The Second Coming" is a hit and miss effort that has its share of filler, but certainly also it's killer. So if you can come to terms with the regressive sound, there's no reason you should not be caught up in the chorus of "Just Like Judas" or the endlessly cheesy ballad "Man Against The World". Songs that, along with opener "Masquerade Ball" and "Lost In Wonderland", at the very least make the record worth its plastic.

That being said, I don't think "The Second Coming" is going to earn Eden's Curse many new fans, just as I don't think I'll ever listen to it after the last dot is put in this review. For that, it is simply too much of an 80's cliché, made discouraging by its seeming lack of interest for being relevant to the people of the 21st century, and frankly, I think AFM are wasting my patience and their money on copy protecting it. People who decide they're interested in this band will likely be willing to pay for their cd, while the downloading generation will hardly have their fickle attention awakened by this celebration of a sound of the past.

Download: Just Like Judas, Lost In Wonderland, Man Against The World
For The Fans Of: Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, Blessed By A Broken Heart
Listen: myspace.com/edenscurse

Release Date 24.10.2008
AFM Records