SKYWARD

This is the kind of release that should never have seen the light. On the other hand, it allows you to better appreciate things that ARE well produced; you have a comparison point that makes you understand the difference between bad and good! OK, let's dissecate a bit this Acuity that doesn't live up to its name:

1. start with no information at all about who's playing! You'll have to search on the net.

2. the second step occurs while scrutinizing the booklet in hope to find infos about the musicians; instead my eye gets caught by some of the lyrics, extremely poor and of sheer bad taste, like for example: Now you are my sex-toy, my one-time love so I'll lay you out then you'll be my next meal .... huum .... stupidly called "an essay on morbid hysteria" ... whose falsely conceptual part 6 is titled shit-eating grin !!!

3. We haven't been naming the music yet! So point 3, the extremely bad intonation of the vocalist ... awful! And spoiling the few good musical parts left.

4. the problem is that those parts are nothing that hasn't been heard before thousand times! Splashing mello here and there, the heavy guitar-driven sequence, well played but already part of museum music!

So, which rating? Two stars is described as "collectors/fans only" but with only one album released and being relatively new, no fan suite has probably been started and the collection would be meager. So the one star grading "Poor. Only for completists" feels more appropriate. And if you are really serious about music, a voice like the one heard here would surely bring it down to half a star if this existed! There are things for which no compromize should never be accepted, especially when so many better outputs are to be found in this world.

PS: with the morbid taste shown in the album's lyrics, retitling the album "Down to Hell" would be better suitable than "Skyward". I don't feel anything really uplifting here.