Band:	Elvaron
Album:	Gravitation Control System
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	October 29, 2007
A review by:	Jeff

01. Gravitation Control System
02. Living In The Anthill
03. From Dream To Reality
04. In Touch With The Outer World
05. Inside The Machine
06. Between Truth And Lies
07. Losing Control
08. The Slingshot Effect

The progers of Elvaron are back with a new album, "Gravitation Control System". Their previous release "The Buried Crown" was extremely convincing and I remember that I even gave a rating of 8.5/10 to this album. The new one follows the way that the band took when they started to write and play music and as always Elvaron plays epic Progressive Metal. No doubt, despite the fact that it's not so easy for Elvaron to become famous, this band is a solid combo of the French Metal scene and I hope that the new album will be like a revelation for you.

Elvaron for sure deserve to be known. Their intelligent mix of Epic Melodic Metal with Dark Prog is really good. "Gravitation Control System", like the previous albums of the combo, is a nice mix of Epic Heavy Metal music with a lot of variations and keyboards lines which add a nice Progressive touch to the music of the combo. It's not Progressive a la Dream Theater, I mean that Elvaron clearly sounds a lot more "Heavy Metal" in the spirit but like with the Americans, the music of Elvaron is really complex with a ton of rhythms or melodies changes in each songs. It's a bit complex sometime but all in all, the Piano/keyboards give accessibility to the songs which are not boring at all in the end. With "Gravitation Control System" you'll be able to listen to an album of Epic Progressive Metal without any feeling of "elitism". Elvaron plays accessible music without forgetting its Progressive roots.

On the other hand I have to do a little reproach to "Gravitation Control System". The production of the release is a bit weak and sometime the voice of Mat, like the keyboards aren't so powerful. It's a bit weird but in reason of this little problem, some of the songs (not all) lose a bit of energy and they sound a bit more generic. Also, in my opinion, there are too many lines of keyboards and in comparison of the other albums of the band, "Gravitation Control System" doesn't have so much energy. It's maybe a bit more accessible for a large audience but all in all, the previous albums of Elvaron were more "in your face" and it was maybe better.

All in all, Elvaron proves one more time with "Gravitation Control System" that the band is able to produce good album of Progressive Metal. I really hope that the band will be able to find some more recognition soon because they deserve it and really their productions doesn't suffer a lot of the comparison with some other confirmed Progressive bands. If you like Prog and like Epic Heavy Metal, have a look on this release and you'll see that "little" bands from France can surprise us in a good way!