Valley's Eve release their third album with "Deception of Pain" and, at the same time, document the greatest step in their development to date. The band with frontman Roberto Dimitri Liapakis lay stress on twelve exciting, powerful songs and use the entire palette of a contemporary Power Metal album. Whether it's the driving opening track, ´The Fire Burns`, the subsequent, more atmospheric ´Point of No Return` or energetic riffmetal attacks like ´Kingdom of Pain` and ´Falling`, the group certainly makes an excellent impression in all these fields. Each song sparkles with a guitar-oriented and yet constantly transparent overall sound, which clearly profits from the band's intelligent songwriting and the clever arrangements.
The album was recorded in the Music Factory in Kempten and produced by frontmann Liapakis himself, with support from engineer Christian Schmidt. The material was then mixed and mastered in Hagen by Eroc (Boa, Grobschnitt etc). The ambitious procedure has audibly enhanced the album's quality.
"Deception of Pain" is a concept album comprising of twelve chapters (songs) and dealing with the manifold phenomena of suicide. "The basis of the album is a book written by an American psychiatrist who had spoken to failed suicides", singer Liapakis explains. "The thing that connects all these failed suicide attempts is that all the subjects spoke of an inexplicable pain immediately before the attempt. Hence the title, Deception of Pain."
As far as their style goes, Valley´s Eve take a step further than the pure Progressive Metal of their debut album. On "Deception of Pain" the band blend agressive Power Metal with short skips away to bordering styles, still laying stress on thoroughbred guitar work and using isolated keyboard parts only where required, or as additional colouring.
Valley´s Eve was formed in 1993. Two years later they were joined by the Greek vocalist Roberto Dimitri Liapakis, who helped the band turn the corner to a more melodic metal oriented direction. Their debut album, Prodigia was released in January 1996, distributed by Zyx-Music and worldwide sales reached almost 6,000. The band was impressive on stage, too. At the Prodigia release party 600 jubilant fans gave the band a frenetic welcome. In Spring 1999 Valley´s Eve signed a contract with the Berlin label, B.MIND Records and several months later they released their second album, The Atmosphere of Silence. They followed this up with a tour through Germany and the Benelux countries supporting Rage and Nightwish. In autumn 2000, the guitarist, Mario Cavasin, left Valley´s Eve for family reasons, but the band found a worthy successor in former Red To Grey axeman, Frank Pané. Another new face is that of drummer Frank Huber, who formerly earned his keep with TripleX and Trace. Together with singer Liapakis and bass player/keyboarder Martin Albrecht the new Valley´s Eve lineup has become a homogenous unity within a few months, and one in which every musician blends the strong points of the others with his own style, thus inspiring the entire band to new heights. After the successful replacement of the vacant posts within the band, Deception of Pain is now on the shelves ready to convince the bands of this group's great potential and quality for the third time. The huge musical experience of the two foremost band members, Roberto Liapakis and bass player/keyboarder, Martin Albrecht, both of whom form the cornerstones of the metal band, Mystic Prophecy, is also noticeable. Liapakis and Albrecht have not only managed to fill the gap left by their predecessory, but to manoever Valley´s Eve into an even higher creative sphere. This band has never sounded so compositionally tight and technically explosive as they do on "Deception of Pain".
So what else is there for them to do ? Of course Valley´s Eve want to go on tour again as quickly as possible. When and with whom is the current question. Important news and regular updates about the band's activities can be found on the official website.
Souce: http://www.limb-music.de
