Elyria
Reflection and Refraction

Reflection and refraction, terms that sounds very familiar to us with some knowledge of optical terms. This Swiss band is calling their debut album those optical terms, and album that is described in terms of an escape from reality with a dreamlike bizarre way. Artistically performed lyrics is another thing I read in the press sheet, that all sounds very exciting but the fortunate thing is that I did not read the press sheet before listening to this album. The cover art is pretty exciting, at least the cover is interesting – so what about the stuff we find inside the cover.

Female fronted metal, gothic in nature – if you have heard the German band Coronatus you will know how these guys sound as they sound more or less like said band. They offer nothing new, nothing we haven’t heard before and that can be described as a weakness. The production is pretty good, modern and everything – it has a sound that works well. Not the greatest variation I have heard on an album of this kind and certainly not the shortest album with a playing time over one hour. I would say that they have a lot to work on when it comes to individuality.

So, it is not the most interesting album I have ever heard but it is still okay – or at least it is not bad. They do what they do pretty well, the singer is pretty good but it all sounds like a lesser version of Coronatus – and if there is anything I dislike when it comes to the creative business it is variations of a theme, especially when the theme was already created by someone else. I think that Elyria does pretty okay on the musical department but they have to work on creating something that doesn’t feel tried and tested way too many times – like this album.

In the end I cannot really muster up much positives here, the music is okay, pretty good even but the songs just aren’t interesting and to make it even more Coronatus copying they sing in German on the album – at least I think they do, I wasn’t paying too much attention after the first few songs. Elyria has much to learn if they want to be more interesting to a seasoned music reviewer, this album shows very little of that but at least the songs are good so there are some redeeming features in an otherwise pretty featureless offering.

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