Review by JD on June 23, 2016.

People who know me… one of my guilty pleasures is J-Metal. I admit that I am huge fan of such acts as Gargoyles, Sex Machineguns, 44 MAGNUM and of course X Japan. Don’t know what it is, but I am fascinated by how Japan approaches metal and they seem to have no boundaries in some respects. That is why I am sort of excited to review Gyze.

Gyze is a three piece act that is an amalgamation of different styles, wrapped up in the ingenuity of Japan’s scene. There is melodic death metal, visual kei, power metal and a small dose of the traditional styles of metal. Think of Children Of Bodom with more power and the keyboards doing the supportive roll (the way it should be), some Gamma Ray with all the visual kei stuff and injected with a hint of old school metal at times. Ahh… very interesting.

I went through the album many times, enjoying the 12 tracks more and more with each play. I was blown away by the ferocity of it all, and yet it still had melody throughout the album. Both the title track and 'Winter Breath' stuck out as the stars of the album… a feat hard to do considering the songs tallied on the disk. They were the most melodic that still came at you with heaviness that most never could ever produce. There are a few weak spots on the disk, but nothing really considering the band is so damned good… has to do with the recording of it, but it never takes away from it either.

Long story short, this band shows bands like COB that you can use keyboards in death metal… just use them as accents and not the main instrument. They are as uncompromising as they are odd and that suits me fine. Good bands need good press, so here is mine- and it comes with a very cool rating. I can’t make you buy the album but I will urge you to.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Review by JD on July 18, 2009.

Another old school styled album flies onto my radar, and lands right into my lap. Lets see if this album can hold water for the NWOTM (New Wave Of Traditional Metal) movement and prove even more that what it has that old school is not obsolete.

At first glance, you see the bands name...Prodigal Earth... is a pretty unique sort of handle. You immediately think that the group that has this name is being beyond the literal term for pretentious as all yet you will instantly be intrigued at the same time. That is why you will, like me... press the play button on your CD player.

What you have here boys and girls is Black Sabbath mixed with Iron Maiden and they are all on very high doses of steroids... that is what comes to mind right off to describe what this band is setting out to do. Massively heavy yet melodic riffs collide inside your mind like a demolition derby jacked up with rocket fuel... and then it mercilessly assault your soul as it thunders throughout your senses. It comes across like a concussion bomb... it does not leave any marks to the naked eye, but it ends up really scrambling your giblets.

Musically tighter than most bands today, they come at you with fire and the certain non-learnable thing called attitude. They describe themselves on their MYSPACE© page as Iron Maiden on drugs. What the band sounds like is not far from a self expressed truth here... but they still sound damned good. My favourite Prodigal Earth song on the album has to be 'Lonely Gods'... one of those tunes that seem to really stick in my head.

This is just great music by a great band. I hope to hear more about this Cyprus based band in the future... because they just have some great music and have potential to be even better.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship:7.5
Atmosphere: 8
Production: 7.5
Originality: 8
Overall: 8

Rating: 7.8 out of 10