| CD REVIEW One Way Mirror |
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Band : One Way Mirror When one is as intricately involved in music as I am, you sometimes feel relief at finding out about the underlaying reasons when a longtime musician leaves a fairly successful band. Like many people, I was shocked when Guillaume Bideau left France top act Scarve in October 2006 when the band was in the midst of a recording process for their The Undercurrent album (vocal duties for which were then taken over by former Darkane singer Lawrence Mackrory...however, Scarve apparently remains without a singer to this date) to join Danish Future Metallers Mnemic! It would seem that Bideau was rather into the somewhat Industrial leanings of that latter band from some time before already. He'd already been walking around with ideas of his own "ideal" band for some time, when he contacted Lyzanxia (and Phaze 1) guitarist Franck Potvin late 2005. Franck liked the ideas, so they called his brother David (also guitarist, and operational in both Lyzanxia and Phaze 1), and Scarve members Loic Colin (bass) and Dirk Verbeuren. Obviously, all were already close friends, as they had come across each other endless times in the course of their individual bands (besides, Loic also lives in Angers, the same town as the Potvin brothers, and Phaze 1 was already a collaboration between the Potvins and Verbeuren). Just to see what would come up, and purely for kicks and fun, the guys planned two weeks together in a studio, composing 11 songs thanks to the perfect chemistry among them (in reality, songs were written by the Potvin brothers and Bideau, always in a pair involving the latter...and the other guys bringing in their contribution afterwards). However, friends all around were now pushing the guys for a full-length recording, and taking things a bit more serious now, Bideau and Verbeuren then travelled to the Swedish Dug Out Studio for a 3-day session to record the drums (and I have no precise date of when exactly that happened, so I don't know whether it happened before or after Bideau left Scarve) with Daniel Bergstrand (who's also recorded all Scarve stuff since the beginning days). Due to the individual band members' schedules (let's not forget that Verbeuren is also drumming for Soilwork, and that Bideau had meanwhile joined Mnemic) it would however take the guys about a year before they were able to start recording the rest. In their own studios (the Potvins' Dome Studio in Angers, and Bideau's Dogs in The House Studio in Nancy), so there was really no pressure to get a product done before everyone involved was content with the offered result! In October of last year the whole bunch took a trip to Tue Madsen's Antfarm Studio in Denmark to get the recordings mastered, and early April of this year they were able to announce that they had joined the Metal Blade family. Okay, ready to follow in my initial confusion about the band's musical direction? You see, the label biography (also used on the band's MySpace page...or is it the other way around?) mentions "...a brand new Rock Metal band on the verge of triggering a revolution in the world of music..."...in an interview with for Metal Blade, David explains that Bideau was wanting to create a band that would be both catchy and melodic...and in another interview with Franck, the latter tells that in fact the influences of each and every member was put into the whole. The overall result is an album with material which is partially an Industrialized melodic Metal, and otherwize a more straight-forward one. Obviously, Bideau wanted to experiment with his voice a little more than in the past, so besides his usual mix of frantic screams and cleaner singing, he's also added that type of what I cannot call other than "distorted spoken singing" (as you might hear from such genre greats as KMFDM or Ministry) to those tracks which have a leaning towards Industrial. The thing is, the guys do everything to put you on the wrong foot when it comes to pegging them down musically. They open the album with the two Industrial Rock/ Metal tracks "Destination Device" and "As You Are Now", both containing moments of typical stop-start tactics and according vocals, plus the necessary bit of synth which completely pull the songs over to the Industrial genre. The guys however take another direction with the following three songs. "ReDream", for starters is a songs with an intensity which you might expect from Bideau's former band Scarve, especially vocally, even if there's a portion of clean vocals as well. Musically there's a certain bombast as well, but less out-spokenly aggressive, and more concentrated on the groove and overall melody of the track! "Danger Calling" follows in the same Thrashy vein. The big surprise comes with the "Empty Spaces", which starts off as a semi-ballad before going into a heavier direction, and Bideau stays in a vocal mode which prevents him to do any of his more aggressive singing. The song doés have a few moments where the guitar play get hacked the Industrial way, but the mood isn't dominant at all as there's even a bit more attention on the lead guitar, rather than on the strong rhythm one...and there's even a small bit of acoustic guitar being played towards the end. The opening riff to "Deprived Of Connection" on the other hand, is só typical for the Industrial Metal genre it can't be denied. Also in the opening is some of the most angelic singing I've ever heard Bideau do (if it wasn't done by one of the Potvin brothers, that is, because they do quite a good job providing the very versatile backing vocals indeed) before the opening of verse one with again that typical "distorted spoken singing". As an interludium towards the end of the song there's a special bit of vocal play between two of the guys with the singing mixed somewhat in the background (somewhat like as if you're listening just outdoors from a very nice audio-dynamic hall, with the big double doors wide open). "Keeping Me Away" then again sounds like a melodic song that could've been written at the beginning of Scarve's career, but halfway the vocals again go Industrial for a short while. "Sockracer" opens typically enough with a bit of synth, followed with those typical hacked guitars, and you can't but expect another great Industrial Metal track. Back to a Scarve opening with "21st Century", and the track pretty much follows in its initial aggressive mode throughout, except for a very brief passage. Bideau again goes from his typical barfed screams to clean and back, and even goes into a whispered passage where he aske the listener what is the difference between himself and the 21st century, but without any Industrialized influence at all. Next up, following David's idea that the band should do a cover from some '80s band, One Way Mirror brings a splattering cover of Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax", and somehow I'm slightly disappointed Bideau did not use his more aggressive singing style a bit more here. On the other hand, I find the use (twice) of that short bit of laughter quite succeeded! As you can imagine, this is the track which sees the biggest amount of synth played (actually it's played almost throughout the song)! Album closer "Liberation" again starts off like one would expect from a good Industrial Metal track with the necessary rhythmic guitar...and by golly, the guys even use a higher degree of repetition in the lyrics on this track than elsewhere on the album, making the song thé absolute sing-along track on the album, in spite of the overall musical aggression! Oh Golly, have I really been telling you about each and every song on the album? Well, I did need to convey my initial confusion about the band's musical direction, didn't I? Let me just round off this review by telling you that Bideau and company have succeeded in attaining the goal they set out for, which is to create catchy and melodic music...because I asure you that after a first listening session you will not be able to keep your legs from moving along rhythmically, your body from moving along, your upper bodyparts from nodding spastically...and I'm not even speaking about not knowing what to do with your arms and hands!!! Lucky I have a very high tolerance and determination level and was forced to concentrate on the keyboard of my PC while I was listening to the album all over again. Baring that degree of self-containment, I would've never been able to write out this article. Darn...almost forgot, yoù can have a look into the crazy musical world of this exhilerating French act by surfing to myspace.com/onewaymirrorband. Have yourself a blasting spastic dance session! Okay, before I go off on a 50-minute no-holds-barred out-of-control break during which I intend to listen to the album all over again and indeed lose myself completely in the music, I still need to tell you that this is not just a project thing! Indeed, the boys can't wait to bring their new band and music out there on the stages, whether it be their home country France (where the first tour will kick off in September), the rest of Europe, or the rest of the world!!! Did you understand that is is yet again a must-have release for me (if you hadn't yet, you do now, eh)? 98/100 Tony. |