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Review: Beto Vasquez' Infinity - Beto Vasquez' Infinity
Beto Vasquez' Infinity
www.betovazquezinfinity.com.ar
Beto Vasquez' Infinity

Label: Drakkar Entertainment
Year released: 2003
Duration: 50:08
Tracks: 11
Genre: Power Metal

Rating: 3.75/5

Review online: October 28, 2003
Reviewed by: Sargon the Terrible
Readers Rating
for:
Beto Vasquez' Infinity

Rated 2.5/5 (50%) (8 Votes)
Review

This is a project by former Nepal bass player Beto Vasquez, a sort of Argentinian do-it-all musician who decided to do his own album despite the lack of a band. So he wrote a bunch of tunes, recruited an impressive list of guest stars, and put out an album of sort of proggy/new agey power metal.

This is very happy, keyboardy stuff in the general vein of Edenbridge or Nightwish, only not as heavy or bombastic. A lot of this is very mellow and it's all very melodic. For some reason, this reminds me strongly of new-age artist Gandalf's "Gallery Of Dreams" CD. (Which no self-respecting metalhead should admit to owning, even though I just did.) Fans of strictly extreme metal should avoid this, but power and prog devotees will find a lot to like here, as the list of guest stars is like a who's who of power metal: you have vocals by Tarja Turunen (Nightwish-duh), Sabine Edelsbacher (Edenbridge), Candice Night (Blackmore's Night), Fabio Leone (Rhapsody and Athena), plus some songwriting and performances by Lanvall (Edenbridge again) and guitarist Empuu (Nightwish again), plus sundry others less well known.

A big selling point here are the aforementioned guest vocals, since (as you could probably guess from the list of singers) they are of a very high quality. There's a pretty even mix of the three females, but Fabio only sings on "The Battle of the Past" – which is fine by me, as I've never liked his voice much. "Until Dawn" opens the album up nicely with vocals by Tarja herself, even though it's a very Edenbridge-sounding song. None of the songs here are bad (Except maybe "Golden Hair" with it's extra-lame lyrics and extensive narration-ugh) but too much of this is too laid-back and lacks anything really memorable. The only real reason power metal fans have to get this is the song "The Laws Of The Future" which features the dream pair of Tarja and Sabine trading off the lead vocals and harmonizing with each other on the chorus. I wasn't sure their voices would mesh, but oh man do they ever. This is the best song on the CD, and even though the lyrics are really stupid, the melody lines are some of the sweetest I've ever heard. Hearing the reigning queens of power metal come together for this tune is worth the whole rest of the CD.

So we have a decent CD with one really good song on it, and one amazing song. I like this well enough to be interested in what Beto will do next (as he is supposed to be working on another album with a proper lineup), but I can't recommend it unreservedly, as a lot of the songwriting is pretty tepid and the lyrics are uniformly corny. Fans of Edenbridge and Nightwish, however, will want this just for track 10, and the chance to hear power metal's Goddesses square off.

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