Avian is a new band formed by guitarist and songwriter Yan Leviathan and features some high profile musicians in its ranks. Dave Ellefson provided his talents for this album along with Lance King and Jonah Weingarten from Pyramaze. With the latter two on board there are going to be inevitable comparisons to the Danish metal group which can detract from this album because other than sharing two members, they do not have the same musical leanings. Avian is rooted in traditional metal more than it is the Power Metal camp and has some electronic keys sprinkled on top rather than being a Teutonic metal force.

Lance, as is the norm with his involvement, delivers a very nice performance. He employs more of a mournful tone to several of the tracks on this album and carries the melody quite well. The Depths of Time is his standout, especially on the chorus. I mentioned earlier that there are electronic passages sprinkled throughout the album and this gives the cd some much needed spice. The introduction to The Fear caught me by surprise however as soon as I was getting into the keyboards it is replaced by the main guitar riff. I think that utilizing the keys more in this fashion would have given the songs a better identity. And of course there are two keyboard only songs by Jonah which are demonstrations of speed rather than melodic undertakings of compositional skill. Nature of Triumph is still the best example of his recorded work despite the fastness of the Jens Johannson influenced Across The Millions. Pertaining to the guitars, my feelings are mixed on their performance. There are scatterings of very effective and driving riffs but when the verses come into play almost every song reverts to the same mid tempo gallop which become quite repetitious and make the majority of the album blend together. The way that the songs are structured is this: They are book ended by solid riffs yet the meat of them leave much to be desired. A few more experimentations in tempo would have been helped as well, other than the excellent melodic rocker Time Is All We Need the album is kept at a stalled mid paced crawl for the better part of an hour. Time Is All We Need is one of the best numbers not only because of its catchiness but because it is the only song that breaks away from the mold that was set in place nine songs prior.

For a debut album by a brand new band, From The Depths Of Time shows that there is great talent at work, it just needs to be focused and refined. Avian needs to dive headfirst into the next release and come up with something to shock and surprise us. Some faster songs (imagine some tremendous double bass topped off by trance like keyboards and Lance’s patented singing) and more diverse structures and this band will rise from the pack of other metal hopefuls. Time truly is all they need.