Cornerstone
Reflections

As I liked the previous Cornerstone album and did want to hear the new one that is called Reflections I didn’t notice that it was an old album I was taking on. Now that I have played it and analysed it I thought I could just write about it so that the work wasn’t in vain. And much has happened since Somewhere in America was released, this new album Reflections features a new vocalist due to a less than amicable split with previous singer Patricia. The band said they didn’t want to be a backing band for Patricia, which they felt like they were becoming. Therefore they eventually ended up with new vocalist Alina and put this album together with produced Harry Hess.

It is melodic pop rock/AOR, I wrote a lot about Styx in the previous review as they have the name from one of Styx’s albums and there are elements that remind me of Styx. There are less so on this album but there are still some. The sound is decent even though I think the vocals feels a bit thin and a vocalist with a more powerful voice would have been a better choice to lift the songs. Other than the voice I would say that this album is a step up compared with the previous, it has more interesting elements and better songs. The variation is the typical for an album of this genre and the playing time is short and sweet.

The album is rather good I think, the opening track Nothing to Lose starts the album in a strong fashion. And the tracks through the album are of good quality through the album, with Believe in Me as my favourite. And now while I sit here and listen I can’t help but wondering how much better I could have sounded with the previous vocalist or someone like Anette Olzon of Nightwish. But that is not to take away from the band and their songs on this new album that is probably going down well with most people who enjoy poppier rock or AOR. And I think they could probably make it work with this vocalist as well, but they need to go for even more melody and less powerful and more pop-rock songs. A bit more easy listening style of music would fit her voice better.

In the end though I think this is a good album, I have fairly enjoyed listening to it even though I don’t think it really was worth choosing it over a more recent release. But if you enjoy poppier AOR I think this is an album well worth checking out, I would claim that it is both better and worse than the preceding album. And I think that it has been a fairly enjoyable album to play through.

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