ONE-WAY MIRROR REFLECT GOTHENBURG, ELECTRO AND ALT-METAL IN DEBUT
With One-Way Mirror, the not-quite supergroup of European metal not-quite royalty, this new band has created a surprisingly solid if not particularly revolutionary debut record. You get the impression that One-Way Mirror — which features Guillaume Bideau (Mnemic), David and Franck Potvin (Lyzanxia, Phaze I), Dirk Verbeuren (Soilwork) and Loic Colin (Scarve, Watcha) — aren’t trying at all to reinvent the wheel so much as write catchy metal songs with a groove and conventional structure, and at that they’re mostly successful.
The record sounds more or less as advertised; Gothenburg-infused alt-metal that’s got a distinct European flavor but is, for the most, in the format of early-’00s American radio metal. There’s a touch of nu-breed in the music for sure, but it serves to further strengthen the song structures rather than dumbing down the musicianship; these dudes can all obviously play quite well, as they do in their “day-jobs,” but that isn’t the point here and they choose not to. Instead the emphasis is on the song. With album opener “Destination Device” and “Deprived of Connection” the band hits the mark. There’s a distinct tinge of mid-late ’90s electro-metal (think White Zombie, Gravity Kills, Sister Machine Gun, etc) in the band’s use of sequencers, stop-start fades, and heavily-effected vocals, and surprisingly this adds to the flavor of the record rather than making it sound dated. With “Danger Calling,” the album’s heaviest track, the band hits hard without being brutal-for-the-sake-of-brutal, while with “Empty Spaces” the band is actually kind of successful at a catchy power ballad. Unfortunately sometimes the band misses the mark as in “ReDream,” “Keeping Me Away,” and a handful of other mostly indistinct songs that sound stitched together and feature predictable choruses. Also, the cover of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax (Don’t Do It)” — completely unnecessary.
One-Way Mirror ends up a fun album that you can crank and rock out to without having to think too much. If you require something more out of your music at all times, you’re out of luck. But sometimes this is a really good thing.
-VN
(three out of five horns)
