Orchid
The Mouths of Madness

A flowery band name, a mad album title and a rubbish cover artwork. This does seem okay at a few accounts but the look of the cover and then the talk of Black Sabbath and their peers. It is said to be doom rock music of the seventies, but made today. It is the second album of Orchid and it is said to show no sign of stagnation and some entitled their debut as an ingenious one. But honestly, isn’t copying the past a form of stagnation? Maybe not for the band but for the music as a whole. I think this album beforehand begs for questions, do the world really need another dose of seventies nostalgia? Does the early works of Black Sabbath really need to be made with a slightly new take? And perhaps the biggest question of them all, why are so many so-called reviewers so impressed with bands that does nothing original, that only copy what has been made in the past? This so-called reviewer have to wonder as these copies are more often than not a lot worse than the originals.

They are living in the past, in a world that is long gone. Sure some things were probably better in the seventies, I wasn’t born back then but some music from that era is excellent, Black Sabbath isn’t. My father likes them but I was always fond of bands like Saga, Rush, Rainbow, Styx and a few other like those, and these guys sound like Black Sabbath’s early works, I even think the singer is as nasal and dull as Ozzy himself. The production feels a bit old and I have to wonder if this album wasn’t actually recorded back in the seventies and then lost to be found again just the other day. One thing contradicts that though: it has a playing time near the hour, albums were not that long back then. It is not that varied either and the playing time is really noticeable, it doesn’t feel shorter than it is.

I am not that impressed to be honest, it is not bad but neither is it good. It feels stuck in a time that has come and gone, made to emulate a time and a band I have never been impressed by, not then and not now. I have to admit though that the originals are a lot better, the album feels somewhat dull and not really up to any standard to speak about. I suppose that fans of Black Sabbath will find this interesting and probably good as well. It should have been more varied as it is a bit too uniform right now and the songs sound a bit alike. So I guess we can call it a decent album, but nothing that will go down in history. People will still remember the bands they are compared to in ten-twenty years but will anyone remember Orchid in the same amount of time? I don’t think anyone will.

Not really that impressive, but if you are a nostalgic one who think it was better in the past. So for all of you living in the past, this is one album to look closer at, especially if your dream is to live in the seventies again. One thing I can’t understand though, why is the album almost one hour long and not forty minutes like it was back then when this music was made in the first place.

HHHHHHH