Opensight
Mondo Fiction

The band Opensight are described as cinematic metal, a description I kind of wonder a little about. Is it like Hollywood Metal, or Film Score Metal, or any of those other film inspired stuff? Docker’s Guild did a cover of sci-fi themes that I wrote about a few years ago to name an example, but there are of course more in a wide variety. I guess it is like I label everything in my music library as rock, kind of the same accuracy, or accurate like the Russians when they shoot and hit civilians although they are probably targeting the civilians, their homes and hospitals, so that comparison is probably a bit off. The point is that cinematic metal is kind of the same as that cinematic box of chocolate; you never know what you’re going to get.

The last song is one clue though, and the cover. It is in the crime, spy, that sort of area, and not the modern stuff, but more like the sixties and seventies. The puzzle the pieces together pretty well how they combine the sound of old television shows with the metal, it sounds more like television than the movie theatre – there is not enough power and grandiose arrangements to traverse into the bigger screen. It is actually a pretty cool undertaking in a way, and a bit original as well. Another thing I like is how they are hard to just fit into a certain category as they are wandering a bit between the styles in a cool way – like plot twists.

There is a lot of shine and appeal throughout this Mondo Fiction, the problem is that most of that quality is outdone by poor vocal performance. The singing is incoherent, and the singer doesn’t hold the tune well, neither does he really convey anything the music does – kind of like a bad actor in a movie or TV-show, maybe he is the Steven Seagal of cinematic metal as he sings are poorly as Steven acts: terrible. I tend to think; if they only had a good vocalist, it can’t be difficult to find one better than the one they use. With a better vocalist Mondo Fiction would be an impressive album well worth checking out, unfortunately such an idea is only fiction and in reality it would be a waste of time to listen to this album. It is hard to come up with a worse case of wasted opportunity.

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