THIS MORTAL COIL

This was Alfred's fourth solo album, released in 2004, and after 'A Second of Action' and 'The Third Eye" I half expected to find 'Fourth' somewhere in the title but that idea only came back in for his seventh ('Seventh Heaven'). Unusually for Alfred there is an actual 'song' on here, normally when vocals are deployed within Soniq Theater they are used only for the odd line to enhance the music, but "Break The Frame" features a proper verse/chorus structure with Alfred taking on the role himself. All of the music is played by Alfred, but here there are obvious attempts to move away from the pure synth sound normally associated with him, with the use of sampled guitars and a more obvious guitar based approach. Of course, it is no substitute for the real thing but it shows another interesting facet and in some ways does hearken back to Rachel's Birthday.

Of course, producing a more 'guitar' based album means that the drums have to be higher in the mix and that is undoubtedly a bad thing for anyone who doesn't like drums machines. Oh, that would be me then. I can't help it, but the artificial sound just permeates through the album and I find myself almost wincing away from it. That is a real shame as there are some very strong pieces on here, especially "Minas Tirith" which combines symphonic and orchestral elements into something that moves from bombast to structure and back again. The album contains more Vangelis than JMJ elements, and will appeal to all synth lovers out there. www.soniqtheater.de