Batalion d'Amour
Fenix

I wrote just a short while ago that the band Riverside was probably the best thing ever to come from Poland, now I have another polish band on my table and they sort of prove my point. I have yet to see or hear anything besides Riverside that I consider good from that nation, Batalion d’Amour is a female fronted gothic band that releases their first album since 2005 and when I hear it I can’t help wondering why they didn’t remain silent instead of making this album.

They call the album Fenix, probably polish for Phoenix, it is Swedish for that firebird anyway and considering their revival it can be seen as an apt title. They also state that it signifies magic and creativity, two words I would not associate with this album unless I was writing in opposites. And speaking of opposites, another word I would use if speaking in those terms would be quality as that is something this album doesn’t have an abundance of.

They are a female fronted gothic band that stylewise doesn’t stand out at all, besides the fact that they are singing in polish. And polish isn’t exactly a musical language, even Finnish sounds better when sung and that is an unmusical language as well. They do sing a pair of songs in English but those are as bad as vocalist Karolina isn’t very good at said language and probably doesn’t even understand what she is singing. The fact is that there is no trace of that rich and beautiful voice the press sheet refers to and the most positive things I can see with this album is the backside of the album cover and the underside of the CD.

Even the cover looks rather silly, and silly is actually a word that fits this album quite well and in the end I can conclude that they shouldn’t have done a phoenix. Their rebirth isn’t a flaming majestic one and I think it would have been better had I just skipped this album but I tend to write about the albums I start working on and this fell under my microscope and failed miserably to impress. Maybe their fans like it but those of us with a taste in music will feel much better if we avoid hearing this album.

HHHHHHH