Project: Midnight
The First Encounter

This is my first encounter with this German quartet who previous has released an EP and now is releasing their first album called The First Encounter. It is not a very exciting looking cover but the booklet and those things feels very solid, I would say that besides a pretty dull artwork this album certainly looks quite good in the physical release. There are always things with debut album where the bands don’t quite find their feet and often do things a bit too cautiously and so on, but for Project: Midnight the feeling is more like bewildered or something as this album doesn’t have much for anyone hoping for an interesting career to latch onto. There are some highlights but the album as a whole doesn’t feel very interesting.

The music can be described alternative, post hardcore, punk or something like that. Hard rocking music that goes straight to the point, no adventures or anything just straightforward rock songs with strong choruses and good energy. The production is okay, nothing special. The vocals are quite poor, at least from the original singer Frank, the guest Nicky who sings in the ending song sounds a lot better. Not much variation either but the album is short so it doesn’t matter as much. Not very original either and to be completely honest I can’t really see what this album offers that haven’t already been done before, a lot better.

I think the opening track is rather good, or it may just be that it opens and then this concept gets tired quickly but I think it sounds better than most of the tracks on this album. The ending track with Nicky on vocals is probably the highlight on the album, a good song and ending, too bad the rest of the album is nowhere near that level. It is instead an album that feels a little bit difficult to listen to due to the poor vocals and the lack of high quality songs. I don’t really think anyone needs to bother with this album, but in case you do I should add that the album isn’t really bad, just dull and let down by less than stellar vocals. In the end I think that I am hoping for much more when it comes to the next encounter from this project.

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