Naming your debut album "Volume One" is either a vow of commitment or an act of arrogance, depending on how you look at it. This isn't something unique unto metal newcomers Old Season - within the last year or two, I reviewed Electric Earth's "Organic Songs Volume 1," another forward-looking debut title. But for a band that sounds like they are still in the demo stages, one cannot help but fear that Old Season is jumping the gun a bit.

Old Season is a six-piece hailing from the lands of Éireann (that's Ireland to most of the rest of us). My previous experience with underground Irish metal thus far has been virtually confined to folk metal offerings. So while I try not to bring any expectations to the table when discovering a new band, I couldn't help but feel disappointed about "Volume One's" lack of tin whistles, bagpipes or jigs. This is a band that is heavily rooted in the dark yet melodic heavy metal of the 70's and 80's - they admit to being strongly influenced by bands such as Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy and Judas Priest. Old Season are more power metal than anything else. But there are also plenty of other influences - Candlemass and Amorphis are also listed as influenced, and more than once Old Season sounds like early Dimmu Borgir (minus the harsh vocals... but I'll get to that in a moment).

"Volume One" opens up with a synthetic symphony of artificial strings - surprisingly low-budget and definitely late 80's metal. From there, "And Sands She Turned for Time" introduces us to Old Season, from Phillip Mahony's and Jim Blanchfield's slow sweeping guitar despondencies to Dermond Smyth's copious keyboard washes to Frank Brennan's unlayered singing. The tempo picks up for the following track, "Mortals of Mettle" (cute). The music of Old Season is adequate, nothing breathtaking or revolutionary but certainly an enjoyable listening experience, for the most part.

There are just two major problems with "Volume One." The first is the album's sound quality... Or a lack thereof. While I understand that an unsigned, unproven underground metal band is not going to have the same recording resources as Iced Earth or Falconer, there are enough better-sounding debuts out there that I cannot help but wonder what happened with Old Season. "Volume One" is muddy and indistinct, with the keyboards often too far up in the mix, and the electric guitars almost always indiscernible. This would be a much better album if it only had better production.

This would also be a much better album if Old Season had a different vocalist. The aforementioned Brennan seems obsessed with holding single notes for painful lengths of time. No harmonization or layering, no backup vocals or even studio manipulation... Just Brennan, singing passionately about death and the end of the world, and encouraging the listener to yearn for both. In all seriousness, Old Season needs to do something about their vocal component. Better production, better arrangements, a better singer... Something. But while the rest of the tapestry shows a kernel of promise, the vocals currently adorning "Volume One" only promise that I will stay away from this disc once I have finished reviewing it.

Old Season's debut comes in a very nice, full-color glossy digipack, featuring images of skulls and guitars and skullguitars, all in shades of sepia and black. And please don't misunderstand the next sentence, as I have always appreciated artists who understand the importance of presentation and first impressions. But if Old Season had spent less on graphic design and more on recording and mixing their debut, this release would have undoubtedly gotten a higher score.

That being said, this is still the debut album by a UK metal band that does not feature any prominent members of any other well-known UK metal bands. So within that context, "Volume One" is not the worst release of the year by a safe margin. They weave an engaging blend of power, doom, classic and even black metals. And while their debut's imperfections admittedly make for a challenging listen, there is still that thread of promise, that hope that Old Season will stumble upon a better sound and a better voice. So while by no means one of the year's top releases, "Volume One" may actually turn out to be the first of subsequent (better) chapters in the story of Old Season.