The country of Slovenia is not normally known for churning out metal
bands of any variety. Naio Ssaion has the distinction of being one of
those bands to hail from the country that used to be part of Yugoslavia.
However, they do more than enough to make the listener want
more.
Out Loud is Naio Ssaion's second album and the first to be released by
Napalm Records. Their first album was called Numedia and was sung
entirely in Slovenian. When I got the Out Loud album, I did not know what
to expect from the band that counts a violin player as one of its band
members. After listening to the album all the way through, there is
promise evident throughout the 13 tracks on the album. There are no real
stand out tracks on the album, but all of the tracks are solid with few
noticeable flaws. The aspects that separate Naio Ssaion from most
other bands are the vocals and the overall use of the violin. Vocalist
Barbara Jedovnicky does a good job of actually singing without having to
apply any other quirks to the voice while the violin not only works well
with the music, but also takes over when it is needed. The rest of the
music pretty much plays it safe, not going too far in either extreme.
In the case of Out Loud, it does not really need to do too much, other
than compliment the main parts. The lyrics are more typical of the
nu-metal scene, but unlike most of those bands, Naio Ssaion does not use
any curse words, which helps because a point can be made without ever
having to resort to such.
Naio Ssaion comes through with a solid album in Out Loud. If the rest
of the music can catch up with the vocals and violin, the band will be
even better than what it shows on the album. For a nice change of
pace, Naio Ssaion is definitely checking out. Now if only their debut
album Numedia can be made available to a wider audience, maybe the score
will be raised by a point.
