Crystal Ball
Déjà-Voodoo

It would have been nice if the Swiss guys of Crystal Ball would have actually looked into their crystal ball and realised that the phrase “less is more” is as relevant today as it has ever been. They offer so much brilliance so much to like in their first tracks just to throw it away by not managing to adhere to the “less is more” mantra that should really be the case for all who make music, or storytelling for that matter. Great and then we get a bit too much of déjà vu for my taste.

But let us start with the quick realisation that this albums is in a whole other class compared with the lacklustre album they released last year. It starts with a punch in the face; the title track is a really wonderful start of this album and a great piece of music. Really impressive stuff as it continues along that path with great track after great track until I am fed up towards the end of track eight and at that time there are several tracks left. I am still sitting here wondering why they couldn’t be pleased with making a shorter album, 30 minutes is often a great playing time for albums with this intensity and simplistic catchy hard rocking style.

I was ready to once again praise this band for making simple heavy rock in such an amazing way, but then the end came up and put a more sombre feel to the album. I think this is an album that is well worth listening to, I could keep the first eight tracks and throw away the rest of them and have a great album – too bad the band didn’t realise that. I cannot really help but feeling that this album isn’t as brilliant as it could have been, but I can still recommend that you have a look at it because the first part of it is excellent.

I think Crystall Ball offers an improvement compared with their previous album and that alone shows that they are a great band at making heavy rock that is straight to the point, not many bands in the genre are really better than these guys. This album had such a potential for brilliance but they unfortunately throw much of it away by giving into the déjà vu in the last third of the album – that makes me want to stick some needles into dolls that looks like the members of these band, I think this album should have been much better.

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