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Voices of Masada - analytical review!
I was very shocked to come upon a well thought out review of the band that came from a writer who clearly had a depth of expirence to draw on. The first thing that supprised me was it didn't open with "I went to this gig and..." nor did it repeat the press release sample listing (again) who is in the band and what they had done before (which just shows lack of effert) but instead makes use of the brain (oft' forgotten organ these days). The result, while not full of praise, did produce a tone of appriciation and understanding.
I felt I couldn't disagree while I didn't want to agree either. The result is that I simply quoted the review here and readers can make up their own mind.
Voices of Masada: "Voices of Masada
Prelude
~reviewed by Mick Mercer
This is a fine debut of a fledgling London band, bringing to us three tracks of late 80's inspired trad Goth Rock, which is all fine and dandy, if you like that sort of thing. And no, obviously they don't sound that old, in tone, but they do seem far too cautious. They're in that sub-faces Faces Of Sarah vein, with plenty of quality, a little dash of style, but not as much blatant power as there should be, it's all just a little formal.
They do have all the requisite musical accomplishments, and a particularly fine singer, so there's nothing wrong on those fronts, but by three songs you do almost second-guess how things will progress, and you're not wrong. Or I'm not, but you can pay along too.
'Flight' is a classic example where a song which is just too nice could have been better because when the guitar starts getting frisky it does sound exciting, and you'll certainly believe the programming is actual drums. Instead we see them rely on the time-honoured trick of dropping the music back down to basics midway and then building pleasantly once more. 'Fragments' is similarly restrained, but the key to their future development is how the dramatic vocal story is well delineated and the long mild passage here, which would have worked better on an album, is definitely attractive.
The zigzagging guitar and serious bass (good throughout) makes 'Fallen' seem slightly wilder but when the vocals come in, you know they're coming, and they just do what you expect, which is a shame. It's too much like they have a book of Functional And Successful Goth Songwriting laid out before them.
As a debut it is more then encouraging, but they really need to let rip when they get to that album.
FLIGHT
FRAGMENTS
FALLEN "
# posted by Matt the Hat at Tuesday, July 27, 2004 | |
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