The band started its activities in the 90s, in Apiai, São Paulo’s countryside, as a classic & heavy rock covers band, which included in their repertoire songs by Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep etc. Years later, they decided to give preference to their own compositions, which had already begun to take shape at rehearsals. After recording a couple of demos, Kappa Crucis finally released their debut album, Jewel Box, in 2009.

The pride and dedication that the band shows in relation to the release are undeniable, which already serves as an advantage even before I put the CD in the player. The booklet, with the lyrics of all tracks and technical info, reaches professional level. The production is also good, since all instruments deliver a clear sound and are well balanced.

Although the compositions have a fair dose of creativity and good arrangements, some points could be taken into consideration in order to improve the band as a whole. The vocals, although in tune, suffer from the English pronunciation. Of course, no one should expect perfect pronunciation, but the singer (who sounds like a crossover between King Diammond from when he was on Black Rose with Bob Dylan) could pay more attention to that detail or even consider singing in Portuguese, the band’s mother tongue. I think by singing in Portuguese G. Fisher would feel more comfortable and sing with more conviction and guts, which, by the way, brings up another important point; the performance of drummer F. Doria. While he shows good technique, he also seems to lack a bit of 'fuel', a fact that becomes very evident every time a song has some sudden stop or a breakdown. All this combined makes the whole band sound kind of scattered and less exciting. I may be completely wrong, but it seems to me that the reason for this could lie in the fact that the band played, for years, long sets filled with songs that the public embraced with enthusiasm, what eventually caused the band not to play their guts off to the point of trying to overcome the musicians who wrote such songs, once they were already safe by playing such known tunes.

Going back to the positive points, the songs themselves, I would like to highlight the following tracks: ‘Parallel Lines’ (the first on the CD to sound more energetic, with a great guitar riff), ‘Faces’ (with its cool chorus and backing vocals a la Mick Box), ‘Son of the Moonlight’ (nice semi-ballad), ‘Judgment’ (heavy), ‘Loadstar’ (with a macabre keyboard intro, followed by the other instruments, reminding me a lot the band King Diammond) and ‘The New Seed’ (ending the CD with their heavy and ‘mean’ riff).

Overall, this is a good band with room for improvement. I'm sure – even if they don’t consider any of my suggestions – the next album will be even better than Jewel Box.

Denis Augusto