ALL SEING EYE

"All Seeing Eye" is the 2nd full-length studio album by French alternative metal act Klone. The album was released through Season of Mist in February 2008. It´s been quite a few years since the release of the band´s debut album "Duplicate (2003)", but the band released the "High Blood Pressure" EP in 2004 to bridge the gap between the two full-length studio albums. Still a 4 year wait between releases from an act that at this point weren´t established yet is a pretty long wait.

In the case of Klone, they´ve spend those years honing their creative songwriting craft and playing skills and if I wasn´t impressed (which I was) by their early releases, I´m impressed now. Klone is a very well playing act and especially the skillfully executed and varied vocals by Yann Ligner elevate the band´s music to a very high level. The music on "All Seeing Eye" continues the alternative and sometimes progressive metal style of the band´s early releases, but the tracks are predominantly more clearly vers/chorus defined than before. References to acts like Gojira (Joe Duplantier guests on the title track) and A Perfect Circle are still valid enough, but other than taking some cues from those acts Klone don´t really live up to their name.

The material are genereally of a high quality. Memorable and catchy, but complex enough to entertain all the way through the album´s 54:54 minutes long playing time. Most tracks are around 3 - 4 minutes long, and as mentioned above vers/chorus structured, but usually featuring a couple of progressive tinged sections to spice things up. "Commonplace" and especially the 12:17 minutes long closing track "Nighttime" stand out because of the longer playing time and in the case of the latter (which actually ends after 9 minutes only to return after a couple of minutes of silence), the band focus on progressive playing and ideas.

"All Seeing Eye" is all in all a very strong release by Klone. Excellent musicianship, intriguing songwriting ideas and a powerful and organic sound production which suits the music well. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Review originally posted on Metal Music Archives)