First there are the trebly drums, featuring what is possibly the shallowest snare in history. Often sounding synthetic, especially on "Everything That Begins Must End" and "Zero," the drums add a shrillness to the album's sound, which is accentuated by Factor Number Two, vocalist Gianluigi Girardi, who joined the band after original singer Alessandro Formenti left in 2004. Girardi (ex-Soul Takers) is not your stereotypical stratospheric Italian power singer (and definitely lacks the range for that style). Instead, he's your stereotypical 80's mainstream metal vocalist, and a rather poor one. Flailing at notes, embarrassing in his attempts at screaming (the most cringe-worthy occurring near the end of "Bited"--did I mention that Event Horizon also need to work on their English grammar?), Girardi produces a ragged delivery that is not at all enhanced by the frequent double-tracking. Only when treated with robotic effects is his voice tolerable, which brings us to Factor Number Three, the album's electronic elements. Whimsical, sometimes circus-like or futuristic-sounding, these details are, for me, Naked on the Black Floor's one redeeming quality. Along with other odd instrumentation, like the slap bass heard in "The Road to Mystery," the synthetics' quirkiness and the apparent total lack of thought that has gone into them are entertaining, often on a laugh-out-loud scale. I can readily imagine, however, that for many listeners these elements will be extremely intrusive. Yet with further development this side of Event Horizon might be exactly where they can distinguish themselves. Creatively speaking, this band seems to have fresher energy in an industrial rather than power prog direction. They would still need to improve their songwriting and do something about the execrable vocals, but Event Horizon have the potential to be more than yawningly standard, dreadfully substandard, and amusingly haphazard.

written by Maud

Playing time: 43.08