| CD REVIEW Thulium |
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Band : Thulium In spite of the fact that my formation years in chemistry (I never got to do anything in that line afterwards, by the way), “thulium” kinda sounded familiar to me, and of course it IS one of the least abundant lanthanid elements, symbol Tm, and with an atomic number of 69 (hum, guess these guys are into chemistry as well). As it happens thulium is an easily workable metal, and in spite of its high rarity (surpassed only by the not naturally found on earth element prometheus) and price, it is used as the radiation source in portable X-ray devices and in solid-state lasers. The name was picked up by several bands, and there's at least one band from Portugal. This Thulium however, is a London (UK) based Alternative Rock quartet founded by lead singer/rhythm guitarist Boubou, whom made contact with bassist/ backing singer Chris and drummer Rob through musicians' websites to form the first line-up of the band. Later (and that must've been àfter the recordings of this EP, because additional guitar on it comes from Cluster guitarist Nodbel), the guys recruited lead guitarist Vik in order to pursue a fuller sound. And this meager story, dear readers, is about all the background info I found on this band, except for the statement that while the band is mainly a Rock act, they are also influenced by various musical styles such as Pop, Hard Rock and Metal (influences cited on their MySpace page introduction include Audioslave, Evanescence, Foo Fighters, Metallica, Nickelback, and Red Hot Chilly Peppers). As you could make out from the caption, there's only 3 songs on this EP...and personally I can live with that just fine! Because even if the music is just fine and varied (3rd track “90 Days Of Sorrow” is a semi-acoustic ballad with additional piano play – for which no credits are mentioned), I hear a nagging undertone in Boubou's voice which makes me suspect the guy's got French ancestry (and didn't manage quite yet to get rid of his typical accent – oh darn...seems like I'm right too, because on their MySpace the guys boast about having members coming from countries as internationally wide-spread as England, Canada, Hungary...and France!). Worse is that he doesn't really sing that well...or, well...let's say I have no affinity for his “style” of singing. None what-so-ever, and in my opinion his vocals destroy the qualities held within the material altogether, and even more particularly in the ballad (the rating is accordingly low as a result). But hey, feel free to make up you own opinion and possibly disagree with my assessment of this band. After all, it takes all kinds of tastes/ people to make up a good-functioning world, so by all means check out what the band posted at myspace.com/thulium69. There's regrettably only the one song off the EP (title track), and having listened to the EP a couple of times before looking up the info, I could not muster up the courage (nor did I actually have the time for it) to check those 3 additional songs out. 73/100 Tony. |
