I must admit that initially, Faith and Reason by the band Detraction did little for my listening fancy; however, parts of it have slowly grown on me.  It must have something to do with some early new wave fixation I long ago had misplaced.  This band is certainly a blast from the past with its 80’s keyboard sounds and Depeche Mode style vocals.  

The first track "White Flag" begins with an impressive and driving guitar riff; unfortunately, it’s the identical riff for the next three minuets.  I felt that it was a great opener for what could have potentially been a great song.

The next track "I’ll be forgot" leads with a sinister organ resembling something one might hear off a Sol Aeternus album.

"Break" sparked some life back into my listening experience with its good melody and catchy vocal parts.   Seldeen sounds vaguely like Gahan from the early days of Depeche Mode.  I also found the lyrics to be strangely sarcastic, yet insightful: 

don't you ever wonder why
someone who's had a life as kind as mine
can only sing songs about the ills and wrong
can only remark on life with a bitter whine

it's just too true, if darwin only knew
the cause and effect of the truth
it's just too true, what's left for me to do
but wish against hope that i'm not like you

"l’echapper belle" utilizes a distorted vocal effect, on Seldeen’s voice which did  little for the track.  The vocal effect just didn’t quite fit the 80’s pop, keyboard parts that drive this song.  

"151" is the third instrumental on the album and sounds like it was done on some simplistic computer music program.  The drums on this song alone drove me to the point of pressing “next” on my player!  

I did however, enjoy the 80’s, arppeggiated keyboard work on the opening of the track, "Once Like You".  Midway this track changes into something one might have heard on a Men Without Hats’ album about twenty years ago.  

The song "Thoughts" is a very good example of what I personally would hope to hear more of from this band in the future.  The music perfectly compliments the somewhat baleful lyrics:

There’s a ghost who haunts me from my past 
A spectre from fear and loathing cast
Whose fingers once flirted with my mind
Providing the ballast ‘round which these thoughts wind

The overall feeling I got from listening to Detraction is that they are still testing the waters, searching for their overall sound.  However, this is to be expected with any band’s first album release.  My main criticism would be that there are too many uninteresting, video-game-sounding, instrumentals.  Faith & Reason has 18 tracks on it and at least half a dozen of them fall into this category.  

Doug Seldeen, the front man for Detraction, has a great voice so I felt his band would have a more balanced album had he not bothered to include all of these instrumentals.  I do look forward to hearing the evolution of music from this band in the future.

http://www.detraction.net

05/10/03