SECOND LIFE SYNDROME

Even after two years of listening to this album, I still haven't found anything exceptionally appealing, which could partly be a stylistic incompatibility, as I am not a big fan of this drifting, depressive, soul-consuming sound. The album opens with a soft spoken monologue from the heavily accented Mariusz Duda. His tone and delivery is similar to the one of Mikael Akerfeldt, in that it's fairly void of emotion between the two extremes (aggressive and soft). "Volta-face" is a more metal oriented track, and here we realize that the musicians are quite good on their respective instruments, but far from virtuosos. "Conceiving You" is the single, a very dull sounding piece resembling Opeth far too much. The song also features a rather mediocre guitar solo, that sounds like Akkerfeldt at his weakest with off-pitch bends. Fortunately this is the lowest point of the album. Second Life Syndrome is one of the strongest tunes on this disc, with standard prog metal rhythmic progressions, and good hammond sound from Michal Lapaj. This brings me to another thought: it could be the sub-standard production that makes this album, especially on this song, which has omnipresent keyboards at the same time as fully distorted guitar. The drums falls into the background, drowned out by the loud keyboards and guitars battling for sound. It's not that bad, but it doesn't quite sound professional. That heavy reverb on a powerful song like this just makes it annoying to the ears. The song writing isn't the best either, being built on very overused chord progressions, and amateurish form. All in all, this band sounds to me like Opeth-lite, but if you like the sort of music that they make along with Porcupine Tree, new Anathema, Katatonia, then this might be what floats your boat!