Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: In This Moment
Label: Century Media
Released: 2007
Very few bands arrive at their debut with such a polished, fully formed approach to musical maturity and such a crystal-clear vision. The problem can be that the creators who came together to put their heads together and, with joint forces, squeeze the purest creative impulses out of themselves into something shared and sacred to them. Because, say, they don’t know each other well enough yet, or because each of them, under the pressure of recording a debut, wants to show everything they can do. Too much can be distracting and suffocating. Less lets the material breathe more easily and freely. In the case of the Southern California band In This Moment, all of these aspects have fused into the most natural blend of musical eroticism and harmonious beauty right from the start, since their birth in 2005.
And only two years after the start of the shared dream, the five young enthusiasts headed into the studio to finally carve out their sound. The backing and faith of Century Media, plus the nimble fingers and fine-tuned ear of producer Eric Rachel, who had previously worked on records for heavyweights like Atreyu, The Dillinger Escape Plan and God Forbid, could only lead to improvements. Beautiful Tragedy, the debut from In This Moment, is honestly some of the best stuff Los Angeles has served up for listening this year. This combo of a charismatic, tattooed shaman with an uncompromising stage presence, distinctive vocals and fire, Maria Brink, the guitar duo of Chris Howorth and Blake Bunzel, bassist Jesse Landry and drum executioner Jeff Fabb was something we could catch on festival stages right next door this summer (breaking the festival ice at Nova Rock is still fresh in my memory). Even then it was clear that the guys and the girl have that certain something, which is why I can claim we’ll be hearing more about them.
Metalcore is a genre that plenty of people today can’t quite make peace with as some kind of ultimate scene peak, but if a band can unite screaming, gut-spilling bellows and melody into something unforced, then success is already one step closer. After a single listen I can say that fans of bands like AFI, My Chemical Romance, 36 Crazy Fists and Sworn Enemy can all be happy with this quintet from the City of Angels, and that among the columns of drool-soaked emos and metalcore wannabes there’s bound to be some lost Arch Enemy fan too, who believes that only Angela Gossow can scream with the throat of a thousand furies. My dears: these days there are far too many women with more balls than the whole gang of testosterone primates, who lately are either too cold or whose fashion hasn’t quite dropped into their pants yet …
Beautiful Tragedy begins with a whisper, the sound of rain and of a sinister little fairy. Or just one fairy, who starts drawing you in with muffled singing amid the thunder. ‘Whispers Of October’ is the suspense before the explosion. So ‘Prayers’ tears in medias res at full speed. A solid guitar riff nails the random listener’s attention to the speakers, reminding you of a mix of the stuff you followed with Iron Maiden, Atreyu and God Forbid, and despite their youth, In This Moment don’t lag behind the first heavyweight band. The growled vocals of wild Maria are only one part of the spectrum, which rushes along like a bullet train on Japanese monorail tracks.
A bit calmer and more refined, you’re charmed by the continuation of restrained guitars which, after some chorus-drenched picking, explode into a fat blast of thick, warm distortion, over which a clean vocal weaves, crystal clear like water from a mountain pool. Sensitive and eternal to the heart and the ears. A hit for all the feminists and a surprise for all the immature youngsters who’d like to keep chasing interrupted dreams and idolizing their older brothers, who drank from the chalice of perfection with Metallica’s Black Album. In This Moment are hit-makers in roughly the same way.
What follows is a mix of thunder and melody. ‘Ashes’ scatters the ashes of burned victims who dared to stand up to a high-octane beast. For the first time in ages I feel the aesthetic beauty of demonic vocals and angelic singing. The hellish duo of enchanted guitars weaves a veil of steel blanket out of shattered rhythms, which the bass-and-drums team of Landry and Fabb season with section-tight precision, and the surgical cuts have, besides precision, also the elementary fullness of feeling and just the right amount of energy. The suspense of the calm-downs is carefully thought out. After this confrontation, there’ll be no counting of prisoners.
For me, the more energetic kick in the crotch is ‘Daddy’s Falling Angel’, which tears apart a reserved family idyll as a hellish agony of suffering and abuse. Pain and suffering have grown into rebellion. The gods have fallen, and alongside them the angels with childlike faces. In the dark sky they left only a fiery trail of sparks and blue flames of screaming burnout. The entry into the atmosphere is violent and fateful.
And we’re already halfway through without feeling a single moment of boredom! The continuation is a ballad-leaning epic tale of tenderness and feminine fatality. ‘The Legacy Of Odio’ is a piano-and-violin counterbalance to the noise. Evanescence could draw fresh momentum from this simplicity. Naio Saion, our homegrown music rhapsodes, who’ve found far more ear and understanding in Germany and Austria than at home, could also look for a slightly more refined expression from the whole we’ve heard so far. This time it’s a fully comparable vignette, where Maria weaves images of gray and bleeding red into a perfect blend of ashes and her own heart’s blood. It’s precisely this restraint that thrills me at least a little less.
‘This Moment’ glides over a gap of an endless sea of tears and tragedy with acoustics, back to the old state of rebellion and raised middle fingers. It could use a bit more of the rage heard at the beginning, but at least the drums work like a cultivator of musical diversity. The inner metronome of a faster and faster beating heart occasionally stalls and, in the arrhythmia of the moment, squeezes the last drops of adrenaline into the remote corners of a drowsy body.
As if the metalcore youngsters felt that you shouldn’t overdo the pathos – the serving of the next steel chalice of scorching lava is far angrier. ‘Next Life’ bites you with freshly polished, tearing-built jaws right where you wanted the bite most.
‘He Said Eternity’ is a curious surprise, which, thanks to the fact that the band’s lead throat now belongs to a young lady, becomes perfectly understandable. A love story of unhappy and disappointed love, betrayed hope and bitter tears of realization is that slice of sweet cake that those who’d love to die of diabetes have more than just wished for. After the echo of eternity, it’s time to sing the praises of rage and revenge. All that glitters is not gold, and not everything is sugar that starts stroking your sweet-tooth-trained taste buds right at the beginning.
The perfect form of the sphere and the circle already inspired the ancient Greeks. ‘Circles’ is the ballad outpouring of an angel wandering through the fog. Maria reveals her last aces, which earn her a place among the biggest hopes of the present. She opens up the registers and shreds the last patches of unwounded vocal cords. You can feel the sweat and see the effort. On top of that there’s ear, a sense for melody and aesthetically balanced daredevilry on the edge of a steel razor, where too many female vocalists have already fallen. In This Moment aren’t corrupt or fake. This is verismo of emotion and real faith in what they do.
After spinning in circles, the storm retreats. ‘The Storm Subsides’ is a thoroughly refined closing phrase, which is why the debut deserves the actual name Beautiful Tragedy, with the emphasis on the first half of the phrase. I’d almost swear a slight German accent suits Maria Brink’s English better than the far more ordinary salvos of miserable screeching from the frontwoman of Guano Apes. Sandra – you’ve got competition across the pond! The acoustic mini-drama pours into silence. For a first time, everything has been said. And just enough was said that you’ll want more next time.
I mentioned talent, spark, eroticism and vision at the start. That’s exactly why I think In This Moment deserve your attention. Not everything is perfect. There are gaps that many can’t patch on the gravel road of their scrappy musical output even after ten records. In This Moment are therefore a promising young blossom and maybe even new stars in the rather crowded sky of metalcore, or emo. Still, they have plenty of material left to pour into the packaging of a second album, and 2007 will undoubtedly stay a fond memory for them, since they proved that a more beautiful and more elegant loss of musical innocence would be hard to come by. Despite its youth, Beautiful Tragedy is something so mature that it leaves far more of a sense of satisfaction in your mouth than anyone could have expected from a formerly innocent sweet thing. Verdict: big thumbs up!
Lineup
Maria Brink – vocals
Chris Howorth – guitar
Blake Bunzel – guitar
Jesse Landry – bass
Jeff Fabb – drums
Production
Eric Rachel
Track list
1. Whispers Of October
2. Prayers
3. Beautiful Tragedy
4. Ashes
5. Daddy’s Falling Angel
6. The Legacy Of Ofio
7. This Moment
8. Next Life
9. He Said Eternity
10. Circles
11. When The Storm Subsides
ALBUM LENGTH: 41:51
