HEFEYSTOS „Psycho Cafe”

I have never heard this Polish band before and I have to admit that I don’t regret it that much. First of all I have to say that the vocals are awful. A suggestion: do not ever try to sing like the guy from Sisters of Mercy or Pete from Type O Negative unless you got the right deep voice for it. This guy comes half the way and it just seems that he’s grasping for air… send him away on some lessons in singing technique! Well once in a while he sounds OK, though.
I think these guys consider their music gothic metal and it is pretty atmospheric in deed. It sounds like a mixture of Sisters of Mercy and In Flames light meet death’n’roll a la Danzig. The lyrics evolve around sex and religion and it all is a little cliché but vampires are cool, eh? Some of the songs have a hit potential and the most sing-along-friendly is “Credo/ 3 is the Key” where a chick helps a lot with the vocals (as she does on some other tracks) besides that the chorus is a “la-la-la” (which I’m allergic to!). I find myself humming the tune that seems to be some Hebrew anthem. On “Away” the chick sounds like PJ Harvey and that’s nice but somewhat out of place. “The Kingdom is Mine” is very The Cultish to begin with and then it’s just a pure rip-off of one classic Sister’s song (can’t remember which). The last track is the soundtrack to some Polish booze-festivity and a really infantile thing to put on a CD… I mean, the whole vampire charm is momentarily blown away by this. Having listened to the whole album I get a feeling that too many riffs are mediocre, repetitious and standard. A little thought: let Danzig or Pete sing these tunes and they will rock!

note: 6 out of 10