April Ethereal is a Polish band, formally known as Leon. After two demo recordings, the band released their debut album ‘Advent’ in 2000. After signing to Concuer Records, it seemed a logical step to re-release ’Advent’ through their label. The band claims to be influenced by bands like Anathema, My Dying Bride and Pink Floyd. Although the band might look like these bands, the music certainly does not. April Ethereal is combining brutal, heavy and acoustical parts into, what they themselves calls ‘interesting songs’. This combination might seem artistic, but somehowe, for me it just doesn’t work.

The acoustic parts sound fantastic, warm guitars, gentle, teasing music. It is when the brutal and heavy parts kick in, that the production and the entire sound on the cd turn mediocre. The sound of (computer) drums and vocals completely destroy the balance on ‘Advent’. People who are into atmospheric metal with a lot of death influences might want to check this album out although I’d recommend to buy April Ethereals second album ‘Al Azif’ which will be released in October 2002. The band might have learned from the short comings on their self produced debut album.