STORMS OVER STILL WATER

Here's my 300th review. No triumphant one on a great album, instead a quick one on an album I felt very disappointed with. I admit I haven't listened to this very many times (would it "grow on me"? I don't think so!), but it's easy to say WHY I don't like this album. In two words: too heavy. I just hate the evolution of rock music nowadays, when heavy has become mainstream and every second band, originally something else than heavy, turns out to sound like heavy, and throws away their personality in order to capture wider audiences. Here are few bands I have come across this phenomen lately: Arena, Pendragon, Coldplay, Overhead (from Finland),... it seems that especially Neo-Prog is generally becoming more heavy. (NB: I'm not talking of Doom Metal which I can't listen to a single second, but melodic and often "Gothic" heavy in which the shifting between frailty and loudness is important. I believe that rock in general is aiming more and more at this kind of edginess, because of the commercial dominance of heavy rock.)

That eased me. Where were we? MOSTLY AUTUMN They used to have a lot of folk incredients but on this album that's very hard to find. Not that this album would be loud'n'heavy all the way, no, but on almost every track calmness may suddenly turn into edgier sounds. Check out yourself on the MP3 streaming of 'The End of The World'. Bryan Josh uses his vocals in a Metallica style in the chorus. This is rather typical of this album. He also plays his electric guitars more aggressively than before. On the positive side, the female vocals (Heather Findlay) are even more used than on their lovely debut, and also Angela Gordon Goldthorpe with her flute is a full band member. So, without the heavier moments this could have been quite an enjoyable album, though not particularily graced with lots of originality what comes to the compositions (nothing very memorable actually). The flute could still be one factor that separates Mostly Autumn from numerous melodic heavy bands of today... I presume.

Of course, if you like edginess, you may like this one more than Mostly Autumn's earlier works which were notably based on the Pink Floyd/ David Gilmour style and added some folk in it.