Hi, for starters wonderful weblog, but is any person else seeing the sidebar all messed up making use of firefox edition two? It truly is pushed about to your centre for me. =-=
These ladies sure can play metal, and here the energy is spilling out of the speakers and I like what I hear, though to be honest I am a little disoriented by the sequencing and a little confused as to where Hydrogyn see their sound heading!
Let’s just say you should expect a wild ride, as stylistically the sound does vary considerably. On opener ‘Lost Reality’ for example we have a huge surge of energy behind a modern metal rollercoaster ride perhaps ruined only by the ‘heard it all before’ growling male vocal that actually detracts from a great song. Then it’s almost like we are listening to a new artist: ‘Right Thing Now’ veers into melodic rock-pop territory with a truly beautiful vocal; it’s a huge change of pace. The following track too ‘Alone’ is sweet and melodic and pretty damn good it is. Then it’s changed up again with ‘Self Destruct’ which takes us back to heavier territory and again the segue is a little jarring. The vocal is strong but a little overshadowed by the huge riff, and while that is interesting the song comes across as Nightwish playing Soundgarden. To be honest though with repeated listens I really liked this one!
The Fleetwood Mac cover ‘Gold Dust Woman’ that follows is nice enough and in ‘Big Star’ we get a poppy slice of alt-rock that for me is neither here nor there. I really like ‘Medicate’ but to me we’re off again: maybe Audioslave territory this time? ‘Gonna Getcha’ is different again; it’s a great song but again the sound is something new once more.
And that is what we get here: an album that seems almost schizophrenic in its sound. Maybe if you took the tracks in isolation or heard the pick of them in the live arena it would make more sense, but for me as an album it really doesn’t gel.
‘Too late’ is almost straight pop (imagine the disco beat rather than the riff); ‘Don’t Be My Judge’ is a light-on acoustic ballad that is almost too gentle to stand up against the other songs here except the acoustic-led ‘Candles Light Your Way’; another ballad but one that soon kicks into life and is actually a great song.
For me it’s the more melodic tunes that win through. The more ‘modern’ sounding heavier tracks just don’t seem to come together anything like as well. Production by Michael Wagner is wonderful throughout. I’m still confused though I did enjoy the ride in the end.
