Touchstone – The City Sleeps
Release Date: 2011
Hightlights: None
Female fronted Metal is scrutinized more so than just about any genre of Metal out there. I am a huge fan of female fronted Metal because when it’s done well, it can cut through the muck and really stand strong. Unfortunately, Touchstone falls short of this task. The production quality of “The City Sleeps” is quite stellar and while the band mixes influences of bands ranging from Evanescence to the keyboards of Rush, the band fails at delivering anything of quality.
As a band, Touchstone is more than able to keep up with the big dogs when it comes to playing ability but playing ability just isn’t enough if you don’t have the songs. Opening song “Corridors” is a prime example of this. It opens with probably one of the most annoying “riffs” I’ve ever heard. The song does progress into some cool musical areas only to plagued by the sub-par lyrics and mediocre vocals of singer Kim Seviour. “When The Shadows Fall” only made matter worse as they attempt to capture the male/female vocal dynamic with a mediocre male vocalist only to fail yet again at delivering anything of quality.
“Throw Them To The Sky” actually proved a pretty cool song that exercised some really great band dynamics but yet again, it’s the sub-par vocals and even more sub-par lyrics that make it nearly impossible to listen to this without shaking your head. “The City Sleeps” is an album plagued by mediocrity. For a band that boasts that they describes themselves as “A band who combine the prog sensibilities of Yes with the hard rocking aptitudes of Van Halen”, they don’t even come close to verifying this statement. It’s obvious that the band’s talent is there but the ability to apply that to well written songs is not.
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