Blue Hour Ghosts
Due

Some Italian ghosts active in the blue hour, an hour that can be good for photography. I do however doubt their photography or graphical skill as the cover doesn’t look very exciting. But according to press material their album was unanimously acclaimed by European metal reviewers, why European and not the entire world? The same material states that it is for fans of Katatonia, Porcupine Tree, and Amorphis, not just your average bands – is that promising or just a sales pitch for the second album by Blue Hour Ghosts?

Musically the are said to be ranging from aggressive metal to soft acoustic stuff, kind of like previously mentioned Porcupine Tree to take an example. I think the album has a great sound, really good and layered production, but I don’t think it is particularly aggressive. It is more like those aggressive parts are pretty restrained, the soft parts are more dramatic to me. But I think the album lacks a bit of dynamics and the songs more and more melts together the closer to the end you get. I think they have some tendencies of layering and depth, but as the previous sentence shows it doesn’t quite succeed there.

Opening track Walking Backwards is the one I like the best; it sets a good tone for the album – a tone the album doesn’t quite live up to. It isn’t an overly memorable album, but it still deserves some positive mentions for the strong production and relatively fresh and modern sound. The sound is quite sophisticated, but the songs aren’t quite as sophisticated. I wonder if it means that the band aren’t as good as the unanimous acclaim would suggest or if the first album was a too hard act to follow that they didn’t quite dare to make another strong album. This feels a bit too cautious and a little bland, it starts so well but then it melts into some really nice sounds but nothing that brilliant.

Do you like the similar bands? Then it might be wise to check out any album that you haven’t heard by them rather than this one, it is not a poor album and is fine enough to listen to and even enjoy slightly. But it is not that exciting, or revolutionary, more a solid effort with excellent production that doesn’t quite have the songs to back up the production quality. I think you can do better than this album, but if you like that kind of music it will probably not be a too disappointing album – so, a solid effort is probably the best way to describe it.

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