FORTUNES HAZE

My Favourite album of 2010. Beautiful amalgamation of metal, death metal, ambient, avant- garde, a hint of electronic and other styles coated with highly skilled musicianship and great production.

When I first started listening to the album I was a bit concerned by the first vocals I heard, which aren't bad but I didn't want to sit through 1.2 hours of them. But thank god the album shows a great array of vocal styles which are a real highlight.

The album oscillates in intensity throughout, with tension building ambient sections being followed by rhythmic distorted metal.

And what really puts the icing on the cake is that these boys are from New Zealand (like myself (so maybe there is a bit of bias in this review)). But the reason this is impressive is that NZ doesn't really have a prog scene. In fact the only other two bands I can think of are Split Enz and Jakob.

This album is truly worth 5 stars. It is a masterpiece.

Instead of me righting a summery of each song how about you go straight to band camp and download the album for free. And if you like it (and I'm sure you will) you can go back and pay however much you think it is worth.