STRANGE ATTRACTORS

Fractal Mirror is a brand new group that has in its line-up Ed Van Haagen (bass, keyboards and programming), Leo Koperdraat (vocals, guitars, keyboards) - both from Netherlands - Frank L. Urbaniak (drums and percussion) - from the USA, a Multinational group you can say. Strange Attractors (2013) is their first full length album after one promotional EP called The Fading Ghosts Of Yesterday (2013).

First thing I noticed (and if you know the band you'll probably too) when I first played Strange Attractors (2013) is how similar Leo Koperdraat's voice is from Brian Molko voice (singer and guitar player from the UK trio Placebo) and from that first moment on is quite hard to not compare both till the end of the album.

Second thing is that Strange Attractors (2013) is an album that I would never call Progressive Rock, Fractal Mirror fall in a category I call Post Prog that for me is a style that doesn't work at all and in my opinion kills Prog Rock little by little every year. Just take a look on how many bands bet on this kind of music in the last 5 years or more, and Fractal Mirror is one of those. Strange Attractors (2013) is a mix of Indie/Alternative Rock with lots of Ambient sounds and many keyboards (that's the only Prog part of the album).

The album is well recorded and have interesting moments but the overall feeling that I have after listening the album a bunch of times is exactly the same as I have with another band I reviewed some time ago, the Italian Active Heed (review: progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=1031855), in general, the album is ok, but not from a Progressive Rock point of view.

For my personal taste it doesn't work at all as there's too much Pop and not many remarkable moments on the album. But, if your thing are bands like Psychedelic Furs, or the Post Prog of bands like the aforementioned Active Heed and Perfect Beings this is your thing.