### Coexistence: Flow

#### 07/12/11 || gk

This is the debut album from French prog-power metal band Coexistence and it’s mostly a dull affair. The guitarist has some good chops and the rest of the band backs him up well but a large number of the 10 songs on “Flow” don’t really have any identifiable hooks and the songs just sound like a bunch of parts put together. Also, the vocalist is a very average sounding bloke who occasionally struggles with the higher register and some of the vocal phrasing is a bit awkward although that might be simply because he’s not very familiar with English. A lot of backing vocals are used to try and cover up his shortcoming but it’s not really enough and more often than not this just causes the songs to sound a bit jumbled. Also, every now and then it feels like the band just has too many ideas in each song and not enough skill to bring it all together and make it work.

*5/10: “Flow” rests somewhat uneasily between old Symphony X (particularly “V”) and newer Iced Earth and the result is an album that sounds polished and you can tell these musicians are competent in their individual roles but the album lacks any sort of individuality or character.