Another new contemporary rock band tilting at fame. Finnish band Reflexion's sound isn't a million miles away from that of
Carmen Gray and Poets Of The Fall. All three clearly influenced by the post grunge Top Forty success of many Northern American rock bands.
In this case, Reflexion's heavily produced and darkly textured music has a slick metallised sheen and is colourfully threaded with pop sensibilities.
These are qualities not obvious from heavy handed opener '
Army Of Broken Hearts', but swim into crystal clear focus with the immense
'Crashing Down', a song with melodic rock leanings, loads of drive and a towering hook
Metal / rock hybrids
'Undying Dreams' and
'Journey To Tragedy' continue in the same vein, pumped up with powerful choruses and surging keyboards.
Elsewhere,
'Me & Myself' and '
Truth Unveiled' are sturdily tuneful, densely constructed, edgily aggressive rock songs. What gives them real weight is a melancholy undertow, full of unrealised yearnings and ambitions yet to be fulfilled. Not quite gothic, but with an unhealthy appetite for the darkside. A reflexion (sic) of the Finnish psyche, no doubt.
'Feeble Soul's twisted calliope is a stall setting intro for a song shrouded in circus like theatrics, rescued by steely axework and an eerily hypnotic nursery rhyme hook. An undeniable sense of sameness creeps in at this point of the album.
The tricked up production on the bland
'Sleeping With Death' and anodyne
'Rainheart' can't disguise the fact that these songs lack focus.
The balladic
'Storm', with a sweetening
AOR undertone, and the emotionally chilling
'Child In The Dark' rectify this with style and panache, providing the album with a suitably strong finish.
Written by
Brian Sunday, April 15, 2007
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