In This Moment
Beautiful Tragedy

The Century Media proves to be a shrewd label in discovering and exploiting the fleeting trends most popular among teenagers and, for this reason, friendly towards those emerging bands with the suitable potential to spread the name of the German label beyond the European borders. For a few years now, the records released by this label (with the exception of the now much-acclaimed Lacuna Coil albums) show a great commercial potential, but from their release, they cast a shadow directed downward, revealing holes in the water and unstoppable falls into oblivion for those unlucky enough who, taken by enthusiasm and without thinking twice, signed a recording contract in front of one of their cunning managers.

In 2007, however, we glimpse (also thanks to the contribution of Myspace, a phenomenon that launched many bands before they became famous) a small reality endowed with some characteristics (which will be revealed to you later) such as to allow many listeners to spread its name far and wide. We are talking about In This Moment, a Californian band formed in 2005 and led by the beautiful and controversial Maria Brink (a petite girl with blonde hair and an angelic face but with a body covered in tattoos and a delirious voice), who debuts with an album that has all the credentials to launch them directly into the mainstream audiences. The only risk they face is being increasingly guided by producers rather than their own minds, due to a career that, in simple terms, lasted too short a time to give them the experience necessary to self-manage success. However, I might be wrong, and only the feedback from the listeners will determine the future of these youngsters. For now, let's content ourselves with an album, "Beautiful Tragedy," that can be listened to effortlessly, presenting pleasant variations of theme in the now moldy U.S. metal scene thanks to a fresh style, straddling emo, gothic metal, and metal-core.

To achieve this, you might think, it takes a great audacity and extreme flexibility. Well, all this certainly falls within the technical baggage of In This Moment, but especially that of the beautiful singer, capable of moving with extreme ease from piercing and high-pitched screams to frantic and nervous shouts, perfecting her peculiar performance through numerous passages of clean vocals, quite expressive and of good quality, but perhaps still a bit too unripe to embark on more complex interpretations. Maria exhibits tempered aggressiveness (which will be able to open doors of success for the combo), momentary neurosis that seems to find glimmers of light from which to draw to suppress the suffocating sensation that invariably looms in every episode of the album.
The rhythm section is at times violent, at times introspective; in some tracks, the two souls of the band manage even to coexist, creating a truly irresistible mood. There is still work to be done on the melodic side; supporting this statement we find the title track (practically an emo song neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy) and the concluding "When The Storm Subsides" (supported by acoustic guitars and a voice still a bit immature to express a sense of completed melancholy). Conversely, our folks manage to amaze in the only song for which keyboards are used, drawing heavily from the symphonic gothic metal scene increasingly popular in the old continent: "The Legacy Of Odio" is truly beautiful in the overlapping of strings and guitars, and Maria's voice reaches unexpected interpretative heights. However, the band pulls out its ace in the hole when it gifts us with straightforward and "in your face" songs without too many frills or affectations. This is the case with "Prayers", "Ashes", and "Daddy's Falling Angel", a triple that assaults and leaves no escape, sucks into a vortex of insane and disturbed negativity, making the listener's mind fly at the speed of light on Jeff Fabb's frenetic drumming, while Jesse Landry's bass thumps in the brain, and the head follows the whirlwind course of Chris Howorth and Blake Bunzel's axemen duo riffs and solos.

Too bad that a certain underlying repetitiveness doesn't allow for fully appreciating even the second half of the tracklist, scaling down the enthusiasm gathered at the start and the rating shown above. To make up for this lack given by the group's young age, the German label has intervened with some aesthetic maneuvers (take a look at the cover), necessary to engage the proposal to youth audiences, the ones who, in the end, are capable of decreeing the momentary success of a band, and maybe condemn the same a few years later, to dive headlong into the prevailing (pseudo-alternative) new trend. Let's just hope that, despite the premises, In This Moment doesn't fall into this trap and knows how to make the most (with their own hands) of the good initiatives of this successful debut.