THIS MORTAL COIL

Redemption play a deeply personal (no political rants here, just man and his problems), pounding yet melodic type of sophisticated metal, with great guitar-synth interplay, usually fast, but sometimes they slow down for a kind of a cathartic slow burner. This type of music is suitably complemented by the strong and emotional voice of Fates Warning vocalist, Ray Alder (who is a rare type of a Hispanic front man in prog metal).

Redemption's latest album, This mortal coil, does not offer much new to their catalogue, maybe little bit heavier and more aggressive than usual. There are good tunes here - fluid and fast Blink of an eye, for example, the slow burner Let it rain, etc. But this album is marred by poor, muddy production, and out of shape condition of Alder's vocals, who has a slight natural hoarseness in his voice, but sounds more hoarse and tired than usual. This is by itself not a crime, but it stands in strangely glaring contrast with the previous album, Snowfall on judgement day, which was maybe over-polished, but very dynamic in sound. You could always pare down over-production excesses, but not so radically and in a downfall manner.

Now, you could make an argument that such bleakness is appropriate to the subject matter, the struggle with a death-threatening condition of the band leader, Nick van Dyk. But it's no excuse for a rushed production work, which makes this album kinda hard to listen to, if played together with Redemption's earlier work.