Band:	Eynomia
Album:	Sea Of Tears
Style:	Melodic heavy metal, Symphonic metal
Release date:	June 14, 2024
Guest review by:	Metren

01. To The End
02. Jekyll And Hyde
03. Mask Of Vengeance
04. Sea Of Tears
05. Reborn
06. The Demon Inside
07. The One
08. Time Will Come
09. Set Back

Eynomia's second album is an excellent example of considerable talent not guaranteeing good results. Phyllis Rutter is a wonderfully skilled vocalist and Mike LePond is not a stranger to any fan of power metal or progressive metal. Sea Of Tears also features contributions from Mike Abdow of Fates Warning and singer/producer Michael Vescera. Regardless of all that, this album is forgettable and fails to make a lasting impact.

Sea Of Tears consists mainly of mid-tempo tracks that lack excitement and don’t deliver a fulfilling climax. The songs on this album give no sense of progression or musical storytelling and listening to them feels like running on a treadmill. “To The End,” the first track, kicks off (or rather pushes off with little enthusiasm) with a 2-minute instrumental intro that should have been reduced to 20 seconds or removed. The song then transitions into an uninspired verse and pre-chorus. The chorus, although having the melody of a typical power metal chorus, lacks any metal power.

The band clearly would’ve needed a skilled producer to address these and other issues. Songwriters, regardless of their overall skills, may struggle to make a chorus stand out and this is where an experienced producer could help a lot. They would also likely know to use an equalizer to remove the screeching guitar noise frequencies in the song “Time Will Come” and the squeaking of frets during chord changes in “To The End.” There are genres where raw is the law, but symphonic power metal is not one of them.

It’s not only the lackluster production that makes recommending the album a challenge. At best, the guitar and keyboard solos on Sea Of Tears are unremarkable. At their worst, they sound unprofessional and random. The album’s lyrics would make a smut poem-writing high schooler cringe and look away. Unless lines like “There was a time in life, when everything was fine and all the world was in my hands. No one told me that the journey would be so hard,” would inspire said smut poet. It’s difficult to comprehend how native English speakers could consider phrases like “everything was fine” or “the journey was hard” as sufficient expressions. The lyrics on Sea Of Tears feel like placeholders, waiting to be substituted with superior lines before entering the studio. When you combine this anti-poetry with the dullest metal, you end up with tracks like “The One” and the title track. “The One” is an awful feel-good anthem, while the title track is a 6-minute long atrocity that overstays its welcome by at least 8 minutes.

Eynomia is a band that is likely best enjoyed at a live concert. Phyllis Rutter’s vocals truly are incredible. Having never seen Eynomia live, I feel I can still recommend going to see them live rather than recommend the album. Rutter’s performance and a few faster tracks like “Reborn” are the only highlights on Sea Of Tears, but they’re not enough to save it.

I will end this review on a lighthearted note with a joke:

I went into this album expecting an epic sea of a million tears and all I got was a small LePond.