Standing Ovation
Gravity Beats Nuclear

From reading the press sheet for this album one can think that there were some standing ovations for this band’s first album, this one where gravity beats nuclear is their second album. The band calling themselves Standing Ovation is from Finland and they are a sextet and their second album is gifted with a very exciting cover art that gives a sense of Science Fiction as well. So it looks and sounds very interesting for me and with all these song titles and stuff that can be very fascinating.

Musically they are not that easy to pinpoint, I don’t really think they sound much like anything but then they sound kind of like everything. It is melodic and not particularly heavy, little bit complex but never with speedy songs. One could argument that they lack a little bit of dynamics, and that the vocalist sometimes sounds very soulless. I don’t know what to think about the singer really, the sound is very good – I like the production. The album is quite long with a playing time just over the hour but with the amount of variation it has I think it probably will keep people listening and without them getting bored with the album – it should last the entire playing time.

I think that overall this is a good album, mainly because of its innovative ideas and fresh sounds. I think things like fresh ideas always should be commended but to be really successful you need the quality of the songs to back it up, and I think that is slightly lacking in this album. The album and the songs are good but don’t really grab me as a listener and I find big chunks of the album extremely forgetful. I also think that the vocalist can show a bit more emotion, as he sounds very bland at times. Overall though it is a strong album, these guys have fresh ideas and knowledgeable about what they are doing, they also have imagination and all of that. What I would have liked though would have been to see those ideas turned into something a bit less fragmented and unified than what they are on this album. I think it will be an album that is not for everyone.

To me no song really stand out from the others, the album is fresh and interesting but the songs aren’t quite there. It is an album that is clever but there is something missing for it to reach the higher levels on the musical scale. So, no standing ovation for me, this is pretty good but gravity is pulling my rating down to the middle step of out scale.

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