Review by Kimmo Toivonen
"Within Temptation Goes To Church"... The influences of Swedish Christian Rock act My Endless Wishes are perhaps a bit obvious. They kick off their first album with a riff that "might" remind you of WT's "Faster", and it surely isn't the last time you'll get this deja vu feeling... but let's not hold it against them, it's not they are merely trying to rewrite the WT hits all the time. They mix it up a little with some influences from other bands like Skillet and Evanescence. Not to mention the pop sensibility that most Swedish bands seem to have, it shines through.
Vocalist Frida Viberg has a voice that reminds me a little of the former Nightwish vocalist Anette, she has similary down-to-earth, organic sound. She is definitely not a operatic singer, which gives the band a little bit of identity of their own.
The album is well-produced and sounds suitably pompous for this kind of music, and it's hard to pick out a favourite song because the quality is quite consistent. I guess my favourites are on the first half of the album, with the balladic "Angel" being a good example of the aforementioned Swedish pop sensibility and "Waiting For A Sign" taking a step towards the sound of Skillet. The second half suffers a bit of the fact that some of the songs are quite similar to each other. Still, the somewhat poppier sounding "Paradise" with its' Nightwishy melody and the dramatic piano ballad "Once Again" get my vote.
Three "R's" feels a bit low for such a quality release, but but since we don't do halves, It'll have to do. A real standout song or two would have earned the band an additional "R", now we "only" get a dozen rather good songs.
Webmail
No comments:
Post a Comment