{"id":10979,"date":"2013-03-05T00:00:09","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=10979"},"modified":"2013-06-01T14:53:51","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T14:53:51","slug":"ep-review-upon-wings-afterlife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-upon-wings-afterlife\/","title":{"rendered":"UPON WINGS – Afterlife (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPON WINGS
Afterlife EP<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nSword Of The Spirit (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 5.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Classically-trained vocalist Anne Autumn Erickson enters the hard music arena with Upon Wings\u2019 debut EP, Afterlife<\/em>. Featuring guitar work and production from Kevin Jardine (Slaves On Dope) and guest vocals and production from Brett Hestla (Creed \/ Dark New Day), the EP is a quick, but strong, introduction to the project that will certainly perk the ears of fans who enjoy Tarja Turunen\u2019s solo work and early Lacuna Coil. <\/p>\n

\u2018The Dream (I\u2019m Only Happy When I\u2019m Sleeping)\u2019 is the highlight here. While it\u2019s not exactly reinventing the wheel, Erickson\u2019s operatic background vocals are thoroughly beautiful and completely haunting. It almost feels like an interlude but you get completely lost in it in the same way you do a good opera.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the title track has a more contemporary bounce with a great groove and spiritually heavy lyrics. \u2018Take Away\u2019 has a performance feel to it. It\u2019s easy to picture the American band leading an audience through the journey in a grand hall (for some reason I\u2019m picturing the same gorgeous hall in Sarah Brightman\u2019s 2008 outing Symphony: Live in Vienna<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u2018You Are My Weapon\u2019 is a stumbling block, getting the heaviest the EP gets musically but Erickson\u2019s voice loses a step, just not quite synching up. It even grates on you a bit in the chorus.<\/p>\n

Overall, this is a solid EP. I really dig the potential here, but I\u2019m not entirely convinced yet. Having only four songs to offer, I feel like one misstep is reason to be cautious of a full-length. That said, if you are a diehard fan of the female-fronted progressive bands or the classical and opera inspired heavy bands that are so popular right now then you could do much worse than this EP. <\/p>\n

Mark Fisher<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPON WINGSAfterlife EP Sword Of The Spirit (2013)Rating: 5.5\/10 Classically-trained vocalist Anne Autumn Erickson enters the hard music arena with Upon Wings\u2019 debut EP, Afterlife. Featuring guitar work and production from Kevin Jardine (Slaves On Dope) and guest vocals and production from Brett Hestla (Creed \/ Dark New Day), the EP is a quick, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,557],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-upon-wings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10979"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12098,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10979\/revisions\/12098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}