Damage - Review
This band was formed by John Wardlaw, Ruston Slager and Mark Rumer several years ago. The musical style has changed quite a bit over the years, and with female vocalist Barbara Mosely taking over lead vocals, they've created a nice sound with gothic rock similarities to
Evanescence and
The Dreamside.
This album is their third full-length release, all independantly recorded, produced and released by the band. This album has a nice broad range of styles within it's seventeen tracks spanning harder-edged goth metal pieces to dreamy ethereal interpretations.
We launch right into the nice mix of alternative, metal and gothic rock right off from the first pulsating beats of the album with "Dreamin in Metaphor" setting up the stage as an intro and bringing us right into a favorite alt goth rock piece "Let U In". This features Mosely's ethereal and melodic vocals over the driving beats and guitars and sets the stage for other captivating pieces along this style like the title track and later the down-tempo, but edgy piece "Rage" as well as a few others, though not as notable throughout the rest of the album. Like many of the great female-fronted goth-related bands along these genres lines, we are treated with a few sweet ethereal ballad-like masterpieces. "Rage", with it's edgy guitars could fall slightly under this genre, but "Deep" is the one that really brings this genre to life on this album with it's sweet melodic style with dreamy vocals. Later, "Little Things" also comes out in full force, not so much as an ethereal piece, but a nice female-fronted alternative rock style.
The first part of the album presents these types of female-fronted gothic rock and ethereal pieces in great style. As the album winds on we get a little bit of variety that breaks the mold and drifts more into a sort of alternative sound with bits of metal here and there and male vocals taking the lead. These include some great pieces, nice ballads like "Beautiful Babe" and the slightly cliche "Waita While" and later "Into the Rain" which is a little more like a metal ballad with a dark, moody emotional atmosphere. Besides these pieces, there are some interesting pieces, one that stands out is "Rose Of Love" which sounds a lot like something
Oingo Boingo would do, or the instrumental psychadelic piece "Godzilla vs. Rodan". The album sort of wraps up with these types of pieces with "Damage in the Dream" standing out as more of the typical album style of female-fronted, downtempo ethereal metal piece.
This album doesn't fall strictly into the gothic-related genres, but it has a great style and great variety for a broad audience appeal. We recommend it for fans of the more alternative and pop goth bands like
Evanescence, but fans of the goth-metal arena should also enjoy it quite a bit.
Rating: 3.5/5
Website:
www.anti-m.com
