First demo from this one-man band working in darker fields (newer Katatonia and newer Anathema and such must be influences, right?!). Three songs, the first being an instrumental, on a CD-r packed with b/w printed covers.

As this has been recorded at home, only guitars and vocals are real. Drums and synths are probably tracked on computer. This takes a lot of possible power as they are totally preset samples. I wish people would experiment more with the sounds, to try out something different. It also takes a lot of possible dark atmosphere out leaving it all too nice... And machinery.

The instrumental has nothing to do with metal music, but its guitar is nice. There you can hear some experimentation on sound and not just plain acoustic guitar. While being an okay instrumental, its one-finger piano and MIDI in general sound bad. 'There Is no Us' is heavier, presenting us distortion on guitar. The music is very simple, but this song works. Simple riffs and sad lead guitar over them. 'Absence' is much of the same, just a lot of distortion on some guitars. Vocals are okay on 'There...', being silent, fragile and hurt, like coming from a radio or under a pillow. Nice in a fragile way. On 'Absence' they are same, but too powerless in this style.

Nothing wrong with the music, but I do not like this MIDI stuff. The music does sound quite distinctive, after all. Some metal riffing and guitars, but that's it about metal. More like dark, alternative... Hmmmmmmm... Pop?

Reviewed by Lane
02/03/2003 19:31