Redrum
Victims Of Our Circumstances

As everyone who has seen the classic horror film The Shining knows, Redrum is of course Murder spelled backwards. This is the second album created by these Greek Kubric-o-holics. The first album, released back in 2007 gave the band somewhat of a local following in Greece but with this album they're trying harder to reach across Europe, something I believe 'Victims Of Our Circumstances' definitely is capable of delivering.

Except for the Greeks in the band, Redrum also have the German vocalist Michael Bormann in the band and his hoarse but still musical voice really helps the band growing. Except for Bormann there's another German in Redrum, keyboardist Marco Grasshoff whom is newly recruited to this album and makes a good job behind the keys. The rest of this six-piece constellation are Greek and their music can be somewhere in the region of AOR and classic hard rock. Like an extra heavy form of AOR or perhaps a melodic and keyboarded form of traditional hard rock.

The opening track is called One Of Us and is a minute long introduction for the first real song, Scream. Scream is far from the traditional hard rock song in the sense of 'Victims Of Our Circumstances' being traditional hard rock and the song structure and style is both more in the area of progressive AOR or something. Scream is another reference to film and if we count all their movie references there will be a whole bunch of them so I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that these guys are well wandered in the world of film. Or perhaps it's just a coincidence? It really doesn't make any kind of difference. Anyway, You Can't Buy Np Hero that follows is one of the most catchy songs on the album with a chorus that's easy to sing along with and simplified in structure - which isn't a bad thing.

The fourth and fifth track on the album goes down somewhat in tempo and puts more focus on the keyboards. As we then reach the second half of the album, starting with track six some of you that's been looking at the track list might recognize a whole lot of the titles that comes after these and you might have a point there because they are recognizable. However, track six - Pokerface - is not a Lady Gaga cover and nor is Have A Nice Day a Bon Jovi cover. There is a cover on the album, though, but it's not Mother I'm Coming Home either, because Ozzy Osbournes song you're probably thinking of is called Mama I'm Coming Home. Instead it's the very last song, called You're The Voice, that's the cover of John Farnhams old classic hit. I personally feel the title track has some cover vibes but it isn't and I can't figure out which song it reminds me of either so maybe it's just my imagination from listening to this song well over 20 times by now.

Overall I think this is a pretty good album full of classic hard rock in an AOR fashion and the 53 minutes that its twelve tracks last doesn't feel too long either - it feels like a perfect amount of Redrum, actually. I have some difficulties figuring out why I don't like this album more because there are no elementary flaws with it but if there is something wrong with 'Victims Of Our Circumstances' I'd say it's the production because despite these songs being very exciting, clever and varied I have some trouble feeling intrigued by the album. This makes me reduce the score by one H, putting the album bang on in the middle of our scale instead of somewhat above but I still think it's an interesting album and fans of bands like Van Halen and Jaded Heart really should give the album a chance!

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