REFLECTIONS OF THE I

I'm no expert and I won't claim this as my favorite album or anything. I thought someone should put something down for this album as it's a good one and worthy of note. This album consists of 2 separate recordings, "Reflections of the I" and the EP "Of Entity and Mind". I would actually rate "Reflections of the I" by itself as a 3 because most of the truly stand-out tracks are found on the EP. The melody to "Mirrored in Time" just about has me in tears when I hear it.

The sound is mid-paced minimalist heavy metal riffs interspersed with brilliant classical piano and strings. My understanding is that this group is mainly the project of the keyboardist, Andy Winter, so the emphasis on the keyboards makes sense. The drums, guitar, and keys all are performed flawlessly. As for bass, it's basically an afterthought, only there because it's supposed to be. You never really hear it. The music can be a little jerky as one riff simply dissolves into another with little thought given to transitions. The album seems to be some sort of concept about discovering oneself within the universe but honestly I never bothered to read too deeply into it so I couldn't tell exactly what's going on. The melodies are very good if a bit spare.

Then there's the vocals. Probably the weakest of the "instruments" in this group, I've heard plenty of complaints about the voice. Lars Eric Si doesn't have a voice that most people would consider a lead voice; he sings mid-range and doesn't sound especially powerful. He's certainly competent at what he does. Personally, I think his sound works for this group for one reason. The concept,being especially personal, works with a voice like you'd hear from an average person, not punctuated by falsetto or awash in reverb. It's the sound of yourself inside your own head, and that's what the music is supposed to be about.

To sum up, this is neo-classical metal, only instead of being pretentious, it's more minimalist. It's simple and personal, but performed with high skill.

Norway is probably best known for its large constituent of black metal bands, but these days they seem to be pumping out lots of fantastic prog rock/metal bands. Winds contains members of various black/prog metal bands. The music is a mixture of metal and classical music in one great combination. The album features the terrific keyboard work of Andy Winter(Age of Silence), Carl August Tidemann's mesmerizing guitar work, a small orchestra of violin, viola, cello, bass, and the wonderful clean vocals of Lars Eric Si(Age of Silence, Honcho, khold). A beautiful album filled with a mixture of dark/light, symphonies and masterful guitar work.

Winds.....interesting stuff. Take vocals that sound like Alice and Chains, add a deep voice that talks throughout, throw in some orchestration, add a very good guitarist and drummer, and you have a unique band. If you like darker- possibly depressing metal this is for you- The lyrics are a tad on the cliche side, but the singing is pretty sweet. Musically there is not much range here- the music is pretty melancholy throughout- and every now and then, a song with great technicallity is thrown in. (5. Passion's Quest (4:51)) Premonition, track number 7, (2:01) has a great beat- a unique blend of orchestra and drumming. Winds is a unique band- but overall, the music tends to get a little "blah" after a while. I would say a tad over 3 stars- 3.2 to be exact :)