An album with a story to tell? Admittedly it is a reimagining of a story found in the bible but it is a story nonetheless and one that is both familiar and one with theatrical potential. Italian progressive metal band GanEden duly take the theatrical approach on their album “Gan Eden”.
As a band associated with the more progressive corner of the metal genre, it is not unreasonable to expect Gan Eden - Morena Dallapiccola, Andrea Gottoli, Carlo Mirabassi and Davide Battisti - to present us with long and fluent guitar solos, muscular riffs and percussion with enough power to move this planet an inch to the left. However, Gan Eden deviate from the expected tropes of the metal genre by abandoning guttural invocations for the passion inherent in eloquent, properly enunciated, vocals to therefore bring you lyrics that you can understand and, indeed, words that tell their chosen story with a most respectable amount of drama. Those words may well all be in Italian but that matters little for the intent contained with the lyrics is forever clear and the presentation is always that of a well lit stage.
Whilst Gan Eden are undoubtedly fluent practitioners in the chosen genre, the structural integrity and creativity evident in their reinterpretation of a tale often told makes them worthy of the attention of ears normally unaffected by albums that end with a twelve minute epic song.