PRESSURE FRACTURES

Nice review by Kev for this Finnish debut album. On the informative side I won't have much to add, I'll concentrate on my own reception. Yes, the sound is very 70's style and with some similarities to vintage, guitar oriented heavy/hard rock such as LED ZEPPELIN. But it also has a unique, distinctive personality. This band doesn't sound exactly like anyone else, nor would anyone think this music came from the 70's. There are some Neo Prog elements especially on keyboards and guitars. Kev mentions DISCIPLINE, I could add TWELFTH NIGHT (Geoff Mann era) and ARENA in the spirit, even though Cozhe aren't quite that Neo-ish, they're much more earthly and hard rocking. The degree of progness varies a lot, some tracks are rather straight-forward. The synths seem to increase here and there after the guitar-heavy beginning, but Joni Seppälä's ballsy guitar work is constantly in the centre.

The music is written by keyboardist-vocalist Janne Nevalainen (except drummer Harri Kokkonen's 'Backstabber'). His slightly stuffy vocals are indeed a bit off-key and rough, but they fit pretty well to the powerful music. Lyrics are strong in their angst. The album contains (among others) three parts of 'Pressure Fractures'. The dealing with ill things of the past is distantly related to Pink Floyd's The Wall, without actual musical resemblance. The satirical 'Music School' part of the title work (which is miming a nightmarish auditioning situation with the teacher shouting "mistake!", "boring" etc. to the poor young pianist) is eventually the track that gets the most reserved reception. It probably wears off soon to most listeners, especially as it's placed questionably in the end. The 45-minute album doesn't include any totally boring tracks, therefore the "joke" would have functioned better somewhere in the middle in my opinion.

The cover art is really cool. Not a bad album at all, best of luck for the follow-up!