Liquid Horizon
(Logon) Restarting System

August 2001
Released: 2001, Independent
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Michael De Los Muertos

Wow. A melodic metal band with vocals that sound exactly like old Journey! This one was quite a surprise. You can never quite be sure what’s going to show up in your mailbox day to day, and I have to say, Liquid Horizon was at the very least a horse of a different color.



The flavor of RESTARTING SYSTEM… is most heavily a melodic one. Liquid Horizon are German, but this is not power metal, and in fact leans toward a more pop metal/hard rock sounding direction, which is fairly rare among demos that we review for this site. But, I should say up front that it’s still heavy, and despite the melody and power ballady stuff here, it would still be a bit of a stretch to hear it on AOR radio. There’s both some reasonable shredding as well as melancholy stuff (check out the beginning of “Forever Imprisoned,” for instance), but on the other hand there are some electronic beats here and there, and a production style and guitar-plus-synth sound that seems to consciously try to evoke Van Halen on more than one occasion. It’s not all that fast, either. If you’re into punishing speed and brutality, I can guarantee you won’t like Liquid Horizon. Even I got pretty bored with the fluffy, twinkly ballad “See The Fire Glow,” and hey, I still weep at HammerFall’s “Glory to the Brave,” so you can get a sense from that what kind of tolerance I have! But there is legitimate, good metal here. “Body Talk” is definitely the best track on this mini-album. Again it’s mid-tempo, but it ventures out of Van Halen territory and manages to sound reasonably tormented, and it has some great bass work. Overall, this is an enjoyable listen.



The most startling thing is, of course, the vocals. Two vocalists are credited here – Oliver Kilthau and Marc Schroth – so I don’t know which one is guilty of the Steve Perry imitations, but they’re pretty convincing. Several times on this disc you WILL be expecting him to lapse into some old Journey tunes. For this reason and the others I’ve stated, I think the metal fans most likely to enjoy Liquid Horizon are those elders who either lived through the era of early 80s melodic hard rock, or wished they had.



Contact: http://www.liquidhorizon.de or email info@liquidhorizon.de.