‘Serpent of Wisdom’ is the debut album of Turku, Finland-based Magna Vice. The label describes it as an ambitious 70-minute progressive heavy metal concept album. It tells the story of war veteran Ed Diamond who suffers from hallucinations. He realizes a helping hand is closer than he expected – but first he must free himself from the shackles of yesterday. The story is carried by numerous clues and soundscapes in between songs. When they say ambitious, they possibly should have said slightly over-ambitious as what we have here is a band that is trying extremely hard, sometimes too hard, to get it right and be over the top. There are elements of this album that work very well, with some very strong guitar and some good songs, but what lets them down is the production and some of the execution.
The drums are just too high in the mix, and after a while the snare drum becomes really annoying, but what really lets this album down are the vocals. The vocalist is very nearly a great singer, but not quite. So there are times when he sings just too high, or just slightly off, or often with a strident edge that really does cut through everything, but not in a good way. These guys do show some real promise, and there is no doubting that they have loads of ideas, but they need to work with a strong producer who can keep everything under control, and then we might get the album that is undoubtedly there, but this isn’t it. 2/5.
