SPACE MIRRORS

This album is quite an octopus! Metaphysical, cosmological, lyrics branded with Lovecraft's occultism, space rock combined to epic prog and silvered with metal, an international line up with musicians from Russia, Italy, USA, UK (Cyndee Lee Rule on space violin) and Denmark, bits of stardust with members of Hawkwind (Davey, Turner) and so on! The list of performers is long and somehow the resulting collective work gives you an impression of overload. Add that the production also tends at times to the same, with too many things at once, tons of delays, echoes, whirlwinds of this and that, etc... You think it's the end? Well it isn't! Add again on top of all the previous long and unending jam-packed improvs! It's somehow a shame because there are good things out there, moments drowned in and struggled by the cosmic plasma; nuances, the balance of instruments in the ... huum can't avoid it .... SPACE!!, all this disappear in favour of the quantity of food cast at you ONCE with one huuuuuge tentacular spoon ... eat, eat, eat more and now eat! There's plenty of acid nutritionals .... enough to hollow your brain! When THIS happens, you may only have reached half of the record!!!! I give three stars but it would be more 2½ if this option was there!

With "Majestic-12: A Hidden Presence" the Space Mirrors have moved further in their musical journey, especially with the forms of compositions. Instead of hypnotic trance loops, there is much more altering in the song structures, and also totally cinematic ambient aural installations among the heavier tracks. The opener "Tunguska" is a good introducer to these more bizarrely twisting compositional turns. Musically there are also more dimensions and colour, not least by the presence of Nik Turner on saxophone and Cyndee Lee Rule's with her violin.

The thematic body of this epic record is focused to the UFO conspiracies and legendary visitation events. The horror associations of these encounters of the third kind are in my opinion well present at some of the heavy rock moments, for example on the song "Roswell-47", where the moods go to quite oppressing levels from the singing and melodic perspectives. In addition of these more frightening sequences, there are also some quite beautiful synthesizer driven new age conjurations, these being in minority however. Musically the record felt to my slightly less balanced as the early record, but my own preference to more meditative music than complex aggressive and vivid rock operas possibly affect to this experience. I also did not like very much the harsher male vocals, dominating this album stronger than the record from 2006. But I believe if you prefer aggressive heavy music, you may add an extra star to my own rating. My own favourite moments were the ambiences and groovy loungings of "Krill Report" along with the powerful riff carpets of "Night Visit".

The recording is produced again very professionally; sound quality continues the ace standards of its predecessor, an awesome booklet has all the lyrics and information in an epic visual outlook, and the transparent CD case has a fine quality illustrations fitting to the UFO conspiracy themes. I liked the seriousness how these thematic matters are taken on this disc, even the introduction essay of the album booklet is from webmaster of Ufocasebook dot com. Thus this album is recommended to the cosmic heavy rockers and all UFO witnesses, and it is interesting to wait how the next album waiting its release on the time of writing will be sounding then. For me personally the recordings of this band have been a nice encounter with sympathetic musicians, who believe strongly to the things they are doing, and I wish them all success with their further voyages in musical cosmic exploration.

"Memories of The Future" is the second album of group Space Mirrors, a band built around Alisa Coral with help from her prolific artist friends around the world.

The overall sound of the record is quite trance-oriented and dominated by shimmering layers of synthesizers. For comparison to other artist I would associate this music with Hawkwind's "Alien I Am"-era sounds, but with more ethereal space sound textures and yet more hypnotic drone compositions. Drums support both this trance drive and the modern tones, and more earthbound elements are delivered by Michael Blackman's guitars and singing. The vocals are quite scarce; Alisa's quite echo-treated and Michael's being heavier growling - later being maybe the weakest link for me personally here, but not ruining the listening experience however. Some of the tracks are merged as continuous sonic entities, boosting the experience of ambient voyaging, underlined by the steady drumbeat. As the latter mentioned mingles with layers of distorted guitar, some industrial metal flavours are brought the album's sound also. The minimal composition elements are used for both building of tension, and cascades of instrumental textures. The long album has a good quality balance on the songs, so it is difficult to name a favourite or weaker moments from the tracks. The song titles and lyrics deal with ancient civilizations and mythologies, which have links to different mystic theories and dystopic impressions of the future.

This pleasant mixture of space rock and heavy metal elements are really carefully recorded and mixed, and the great depth and clarity of sounds united to long tunnel visions of the songs made this as one of the favourite listening for cruising with a car admits the dark winter city landscapes of my home country. I have not heard group's debut album, so for me this record released in early 2006 was the first touch to their cosmic music. Album covers are really pretty too, and I would recommend these lovely synthscapes and delicate aural UFO encounters for the fans of modern sounding heavy space rock and cosmic trance beats. Those interested of Von Däniken's theories might wish to check this CD out also.