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In 2002 Mr. Vazquez stepped into the limelight with Beto Vázquez Infinity, he got some attention due to having Tarja Turunen, Candice Night and Fabio Lione as guest. Existence Pt. 1 is the 4th full-length album and again he has invited some guests to join him. Actually Existence was released in Beto's home country Argentina in 2010 as a double album.
The opener is called Shadows Fall and it's a symphonic up-tempo track with fast double-bass drumming. The vocals partly remind me of Kai Hansen at early Helloween album, but that's mainly the high-pitched parts. But you also get some spoken word passages. Unfortunately there is no information who is doing a guest performance at this or any other track. At Council Of My Dreams a girls singing in a dramatic way, the backing don't fit for me. But the guitar melody is cool and quite catchy. The male vocals at The Temple partly show similarities to Ville Valo, especially at the opening passage, later a female singer joins in and they sing together. But the girls voice is almost drowning... At the title track you'll get operatic vocals, but whoever is singing doesn't have a strong voice which can stand up against the double-bass drumming and riffage. It works better at the passages where this is reduced. Then a dramatic passage with spoken words, narrator-like and back to the main theme. Celestial Meeting starts slowly and again I wonder why Mr. Vazquez adds some female backings to the lead vocals, just to give it a more bombastic sound? I think the singer could stand her ground and it weakens her performance. Wit Tonight another fast tune is presented, again operatic vocals. But it seems that she is joined by another singer... More information would have been highly welcome - at least by me. At Future City - I hope it's the title, coz the tracks are only numbered and the guy repeatedly sings 'tonight'... - the vocals are a bit US metal like, but musically it's more bombastic power metal. At Freedom the instrumental passage in the second half of the song shows that Mr. Vazquez has some cool ideas. He likes to work with female voices, but sometimes a better mix or voices which differ more would do the songs some good. At the debut he worked with Tarja Turunen and Candice Night, two quite different singer and it worked well. At the closer Dark Night you get operatic vocals as well as some spoken words with additional whispered words, but there is nothing memorable. I simply miss some catchiness and some variety. Sure, there are variations in speed, but that's it. No real highlights, the songs are just average - I'm sorry to say. I think next time Beto Vazquez should cut down the list of guests and focus on working with few people but more closely.
Genre fans will find some interesting passages and good performances, but everybody else should check out the album first.
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