Flowing Tears – “Razorbliss”
Flowing Tears’ concept is about an overall mood of emotional songs, all based on somber and melodic, midpaced, melancholic goth rock. Helen Vogt’s singing and the music mesh well in creating the somber feel. She stays within a midrange tone, only occasionally going for the high or low notes. The songs are melodic and easy to remember. This music has pretty simple and basic guitar work. There’s nothing outstanding, since it’s just background, downtuned rhythm keeping a beat. The same is true for the drums. The songs should please goth rock fans that like bands with melodic, female singing. “Radium Angel” has a melodic, if short guitar solo, which makes it stand out. “Virago” has a whispered chorus and it’s keyboardy. I was expecting a chorus after the whispered part, but it turns out that that was the chrorus; huh. “Razorbliss” is a pretty keyboard-based song, while “Believe” does have more guitar. Ultimately I got the feeling that this is a ok, but a second-rate album. The songs do begin to sound pretty similar (keyboardy, midpaced) after a while. The structure, the pace and the feel of the songs become too similar. I think that they are going to have to step it up substantially if they are to stand out. They have the look and a good-looking woman singing, whatever. Now they need better songs.