Black Rose Maze
s/t

Apparently Rosa, who is the main character of this moniker, was in a French version of The Voice and did well in whatever that is. Frontiers write things about that and the she have been touring with Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This self-titled release is the debut album of Black Rose Maze, and it certainly looks good. Having Alessandro Del Vecchio as producer also guarantee a good sound standard, but what about the album? The song writing and the songs are more important than a good sound, but Frontiers usually release good stuff, rarely amazing stuff but lots of solid albums have their stamp on them and not too many poor ones.

This is pretty typical female fronted heavy rock or metal music with catchy choruses and pretty simple song structures. It offers good and modern sound, pretty typical of Del Vecchio’s productions I think. There isn’t much that stands out about this album but the vocals from Rosa are really great, she is one good singer with lots of character and energy in her performance. She performs pretty generic songs, so she sings better than she creates – that much is certain, and I think that this album is a tad too long and it isn’t interesting from a creative perspective.

I think that this album starts really well, the opening of the first tracks ups my expectations but they fall quickly downwards again after that, and the longer the album continues, the less interesting and good it feel. The first few songs are fairly good but the rest of the album feels like something I wait for to end, or that I don’t really pay attention to. It is one of those albums I have played more than a dozen times but never really listened to, as it is so bland and generic that my interest is never more than peripheral.

Black Rose Maze might not disappoint you, but I can guarantee you that it isn’t an album that you will play after the initial plays. It will just stand there is a shelf and collect dust forever and no one will ever play it again. Soon it is boxed with the other unmodern CDs and forgotten forever, it will not make a mark so it will not ever bring a value for the collector either. I think this is a pretty bland album that feels like a waste of such a good vocalist, too bad that she isn’t a good songwriter as well.

HHHHHHH