In This Moment
The Dream

Second chapter for this intriguing American band whose genre is universally defined as METAL-CORE, and I still haven't figured out if that CORE is to be interpreted in the Anglo-Saxon or Roman sense of the term. Certainly, compared to the first album ('Beautiful Tragedy'), in "The Dream" the band has calmed down and shifted towards much more melodic shores.  There they are, some of you might say, they've had some success and immediately got soft and commercialized. Maybe. And I, for my part, would say that it's a shame to sacrifice a splendid voice like Maria Brink's to the role of pure screamer. And so this new phase is welcome.

One cannot talk about In This Moment without first pontificating on Maria Brink, the vocalist and leader who embodies the delight of any gothic aesthetic: an enchanting blonde, a face suspended halfway between the celestial and the mischievous, curves that could cause a heart attack, an arm entirely tattooed (I don’t want to know what she has tattooed there), and above all, a divine voice, that sometimes belches the anger of the centuries, and sometimes delights you with more refined performances.
Brink has charisma and isn't just one of the many cuties writhing on stage with their gothic metal core *.* band. She is a beauty, indeed, so much so that Playboy noticed her and asked for a feature. It seems she said yes, but not nude.
And for this refusal, I think it's rational and objective to deduct at least a point from the album.

The album itself is decidedly catchy, it is pleasant to listen to, and it has good tracks, from the short instrumental intro "The Rabbit Hole" (speaking of bunnies...), through "Forever", "All For You", "Lost at Sea". A real blast is "Mechanical Love", where there’s slightly more pounding compared to other tracks.

Speaking of pounding, one aspect I do NOT like about the album is the excessively sampled drums and consequently a bit fake: but dear *.metal.* guys, why don't you like the snare that sounds like a snare, the bass drum that sounds like a bass drum, with those slightly dark but very very rock resonances, toms that each have their own tone and not all the same, so that a roll sounds like a roll and not a pile of cans collapsing on the ground??

Aside from that, all is well: the record flows pleasantly and closes with "Violet Skies" and "The Dream", the title track that returns to the band's debut style.

A separate discussion is merited for that masterpiece of pain which is "Into the Light", a jewel that kills you inside every time you hear it, and in which Brink's voice gives its maximum in terms of interpretation and pathos. It's a song for voice and piano/keyboards, clearly inspired by the suffering of a loss, that suffering which is essentially the greatest source of inspiration for music that unleashes a storm of emotions and is hard to remain indifferent to. It is obviously a "superior" inspiration that allows for the birth of such compositions: the feeling it gives is similar to that of "One Last Goodbye" by Anathema, which perhaps is the ultimate incarnation of this type of 'superior inspiration' songs.

That said, the album is definitely pleasant, a 3.5 more than a 4, but since they are young and full of potential, we want to reward them. The band musically supports well Brink's now raspy, now angry, now sweet voice. We await the new chapter, expected for July 2010. If anyone has found the Playboy photos, please share the link.