Yes!! My discovery of the month is Auvernia, which hails from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Surfing the internet I accidently came across their name. In the info the musical influences of the band were compared with Symphony X, Children of Bodom and Dragonforce. Immediately my interest was there. Still very suspicious (what can you expect from an Argentinean self-release?), I started listening to some songs on Myspace. This convinced me enough to order the album and I must say I have no regrets whatsoever. When I'm going to be very critical, I can pick at the sound and at the vocal performance. You can hear that the production and mixing isn't done by a real top-producer, but that gives it some charm. There is some slang in the vocals (all the German singers have that too) and it is not always clean, but when you take that for granted...
You have an album which takes you from progressive to powerful complex music, sometimes very fast and aggressive, then back to serenity to once again explode in powerful riffing and fabulous arrangements. What makes it very special is the very melodic and nice keyboard parts throughout a lot of the songs. The music is a mixture of Into Eternity (fast complex parts), Children of Bodom, Symphony X and Helloween combined with some melody and darkness. At some moments also the band Divine Fire (growling combined with clean vocals) crossed my mind.
If you want something else, something rather original, try this album. To the record labels I would say: sign the band and get this record into the European stores. Perhaps it will not be a million-seller, but at least you have something original and with quality.
