| In This Moment Beautiful Tragedy |
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 | Tracklist:
1. Whispers of October
2. Prayers
3. Beautiful Tragedy
4. Ashes
5. Daddy's Falling Angel
6. Legacy of Odio
7. This Moment
8. Next Life
9. He Said Eternity
10. Circles
11. When the Storm Subsides
| Ranking: #175 for 2007 | |
| | other reviews | Kyle (4)
A great ablum with a great vocalist, setting a standard for future bands with female vocalists.... |
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| Summary: Quite possibly one of the best combinations of rock and metal in recent memory |
1 of 1 thought this review was well written
Mention the phrase "woman" in the context of a metal band, and most people will probably laugh or snort in disdain at the mere mention of a female being in a metal band.
There are a handful of successful females in metal. Bands like Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Otep, Walls of Jericho are all fronted by women. They all have considerable fanbases, and great albums.
In This Moment should be placed right alongside these well-known female fronted bands.
In This Moment, admittedly, does not do anything particularly new on their debut album Beautiful Tragedy. But it how well they combine elements of metal and rock to create an album that is not only beautiful, but brutal at times.
What makes In This Moment so good is their ability to seamlessly move from pounding metal riffing into sing-along choruses. There may be plenty of people who decry the use of singing in today's metal, but frontwoman Maria Brink's singing voice is nearly angelic at times. She sings with passion, with fire, and desire. She may not have the vocal capabilities of Cristina Scabbia or even the range of Amy Lee, but she her vocal melodies flow extremely well over the pulsating rhythms beneath her.
The guitar work is a mix of Unearth-like brutality - dual guitars that chug away with blistering riffs, fast harmonized passages and the occasional solo - to what I can only describe as straight up rock playing. That is, their choruses are often, though not always, simple, fast-ish strumming patterns. This allows for Maria to sing high and mighty over it all, and it's good that they let as previously mentioned. Drumming on this album is pretty much standard metal fare with lots of double bass, snare hits and crashing cymbals while the bass does it's job of getting lost in the mix more often than not.
The low point of the album, besides the bass playing or lack thereof is potentially Maria's screaming. There are plenty of times where one might, or will, cringe when she screams. Sometimes it appears as if she is straining to scream, or is not quite hitting higher notes that she wants to hit. Her screaming voice is certainly something of an acquired taste. I'm sure it will not please many metal purists/fans/whatever, but I strongly feel that the rest of the album is great enough to overlook her occasional foray into sounding like a Harpy.
Standout tracks on this album would include Prayers, an upbeat, fast paced number with great singing in the verse, Beautiful Tragedy with a wonderful clean guitar intro, is certainly the most 'rock' oriented song on the album, Daddy's Falling Angel which is an ***-kicking ride throughout, and Next Life which is arguably the heaviest, or at least the second heaviest track on the album.
To sum up: They may not be breaking any new ground here, but the path they are following is certainly an enjoyable mix of singing and headbanging along.
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| Recent reviews by this author | | | |
In This Moment, admittedly, does not do anything particularly new on their debut album Beautiful Tragedy. But it how well they combine elements of metal and rock to create an album that is not only beautiful, but brutal at times.
This.
About time someone finally reviewed this; I was about ready to go at it myself, though hesitant since I'm so new to the metal scene. This is pretty good.
Your review is kind of bare though; it's good, but a few more references to actual occurences of what you mentioned in the songs would have been nice instead of pushing them to the last paragraph. It gets the job done, though, and that's what matters.
| | | Album Rating: 4
you beat me to a review, this was going to be my first....i might still do one later. good review you summed this up pretty well. i saw these guys and girl a long time ago before they were even signed to Century records and they kciked ass so ive been a fan since. they played with The Human Abstract you were unknown as well at the time. mariah has a beautiful singing voice but i really like her screams. i hope more people recognize them but im sure the death metal and black metal purists wont like this
Digging: Junius - The Martyrdom of a Catastrophist | | |
jrowa, you should still do. I'd like to see how much you like this and why. A little more description might be better for those who still are hesitant to get this.
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Good review.
Try mixing the tracks in with the rest of the review though. For example, try mentioning songs which stand out in terms of guitar, or songs in which the lead singer shines when discussing them. This will probably increase the main paragraph lengths and get rid of the small paragraph at the end.
But yeah, I liked the review a lot aside from that.
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This album sounds interesting enough.
Digging: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
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Pretty good review. I personally love the idea of women in metal. I also like it when other ethnicities not normally associated with the metal scene get involved, cause sometimes you just get tired of hearing a bunch of young white guys playing heavy music.
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Don't forget to add Arch Enemey to the list of great bands with a female frontman. (or frontwoman?)
Good review btw.
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Yeah definitely missed Arch Enemy there. But I know this group, almost bought the record a bit ago. Can someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send this to me? My AIM is in my profile.
Digging: Between The Buried And Me - The Great Misdirect
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Nice to see you back at reviewing Joz, haven't seen you in a long time.
Digging: Brand New - Daisy
| | | Album Rating: 4
aim or email me if you want this.....my screen name is jshotallday2310, or my email is jrowa001@ucr.edu
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I've only heard two songs so far, and her screaming voice was very, very, cringeable. But I did like the singing and the instrumentation was nice I guess. I'll check it out.
| | | Album Rating: 4
^^most think her screaming voice is bad but i tend to focus on the instrumentals and her clean vocals.....plus she is hot, they have a video for Prayers
| | | Album Rating: 3.5
nice vocals, and the mix of metalcore and rock its really catchy, a very enjoyable album..
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I can't stand her voice though i do like women in metal, good review anyway
| | | Album Rating: 1.5
Nothing really special, her singing is good. And apparently she's got a 14 year old kid according to Revolver. Crazy.
Digging: Deep-Pression/Exethersis - Train Exeter To D.P. State | | | Album Rating: 3
Well it's their first album... can't expect perfection on their first effort
[quote=BallsToTheWall] And apparently she's got a 14 year old kid according to Revolver. Crazy. [/quote]
Can you get a link to that?
Digging: Vordr - I | | | Album Rating: 1.5
Maybe the article is up on the revolver metal magazine web site. Thats a hard time, I admire her for her courage.
www.revolvermag.com
| | | Album Rating: 3
That's true, I've read that article before. It's a courageous move on her part, especially on the behalf of her son. Glad it worked out for her.
This album isn't half bad either.
Digging: Death - Scream Bloody Gore | | | Album Rating: 3
I think if they drop the metalcore and focus on her singing, they could really put out something great
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its always great but i see and i agree wiff u...
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