Soulforge

Soulforge's full-length debut album, Duality, seems like power metal with hardcore vocals at times, but this is a band that's hard to pin down. Outside of a few crunchy chords, their guitars tend to sound a little thin, but many of the riffs on Duality are pretty thrashy and some verge on melodic death metal. The new age synth patches seem a bit out of place, but don't really detract from the music at all. The problem with this CD is in the mix. Soulforge's songwriting is solid, and in the moments when everything comes together they have a rich, impressive delivery, but the airy production works against them. As good as these songs are, Soulforge just don't sound like they mean it.