DARK REFLEXIONS – Beyond Obscurity
- Posted on 04-10-2011
Dark Reflexions are a decent modern/melodic death metal band. But decentness just isn’t enough these days. Song structures, melody lines and instrumentation that you have heard a dozen times before might be okay if the overall impression exudes confidence and is at the peak of what has been done previously. Sadly for Dark Reflexions they fail to convince.
The first complain I’ve got about “Beyond Obscurity” is that the production is dodgy. The drums sound less powerful than Bon Jovi, which to me isn’t convincing in the genre of melodeath. Also the guitars have the appearance of being far away, while the vocal recording at least seems up to par.
As for my other complaints, the riffs, melodies and song structures isn’t engaging. It is all hopelessly predictable, lacking in identity and inventiveness. It is not enough to copy the best of your genre. If playing on clichés you preferably have to do them even better than your heroes to be convincing. The track “Euthanasia”, which incidentally is the most brutal on the album, strikes me as glimmer of hope though. Perhaps more brutality is the way to go for Dark Reflexions to succeed.