It is not easy to create innovative power metal these days, so every effort to do so needs to be applauded. I am very much of the mind that power and progressive metal has every right to exist next to the extreme genres, but I don’t like Helloween, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest to be recycled endlessly. French band Eternal Flight makes a concerted attempt to create a distinct product with their full-length debut Positive Rage on Cruz Del Sur music, a growing Italian label that seems to have a keen eye for signing acts with a certain degree of originality.

Some albums’ names make sense and some don’t. In the case of Eternal Flight I can’t think of a more fitting term than Positive Rage. With the RAGING part the band relies on aggressive guitar ‘walls of riffs’ passages by Cristophe Offredi to create heaviness and put pressure on the listener (The Masks Will Fall, Beyond (The Golden Gates), Morphoenix). In many ways this style of riffing would be of interest to the rough’n’tumble power metal liking crowd, the fans of Destiny’s End and Brainstorm. To provide a progressive wrinkle, the rhythm section of Nicolas Jeanpierre (bass) and Alexandre Stellini (drums) keeps the rhythms fleeting (All We Are). Another progressive element of Eternal Flight is keyboards by Sebastien Vibert adding very uplifting POSITIVE atmosphere (Guardians, Morphoenix) or even taking more center stage with their spacey sounds contrasting earthy and quite heavy guitar (All We Are). The best analogy I could give to Eternal Flight, at times they sound like a brighter, more positive version of Nevermore. Same guitar weightiness, no dark feelings.

However, where Nevermore always captivated me completely Eternal Flight does not seem to always succeed. Seattle’s finest, pensive moods or not, exude melody with their riffs, solos and vocals. It is quite often subtle, but nevertheless entrancing. Eternal Flight riffing is focused just on chords to be sharp and precise and that leads to some verses (Guardians) be quite monotonous. This music just needs more hook, but Eternal Flight seems to provide it only sparingly (chorus of Guardians). Instead, they try to jam the melodious parts into solos which makes the latter long, protracted and quite stand alone. If the rest of the music is not about “guitar hero” then why should the solos be?

Gerard Fois, the band’s founder, handles the vocals at the level of B+. Without valleys, he, however, doesn’t have many peaks either. Rare high notes aside (The Masks Will Fall) he rarely strays away from the blueprint. Even though the vocals are quite up front in the mix already, I would like for the voice on Positive Rage to carry more melody since guitar riffs don’t do that, sort of like Andy Frank does for Brainstorm. More emotion would be welcome as well, especially if Nevermore is your influence (Warrel Dane is ALWAYS emotional). On ballad Secret Place, filled with mysterious xylophone like synthesizer sound and Scorpions inspired solo, Gerard almost sounds like Jon Oliva of Savatage.

Quality musicianship of Eternal Flight undeniable the band is not very consistent from song to song. Some sound almost symphonic (The Moon King), some hook you in (Beyond (The Golden gates)), but other just plod along (Back into the Light (Renaissance)). While obviously not very generic, Positive Rage is not the most exciting progressive power metal either. This could become very good, however, and bears watching.