This is a fine debut of a fledgling London band, bringing to us three tracks of late 80's inspired trad Goth Rock, which is all fine and dandy, if you like that sort of thing. And no, obviously they don't sound that old, in tone, but they do seem far too cautious. They're in that sub-faces Faces Of Sarah vein, with plenty of quality, a little dash of style, but not as much blatant power as there should be, it's all just a little formal.

They do have all the requisite musical accomplishments, and a particularly fine singer, so there's nothing wrong on those fronts, but by three songs you do almost second-guess how things will progress, and you're not wrong. Or I'm not, but you can pay along too.

'Flight' is a classic example where a song which is just too nice could have been better because when the guitar starts getting frisky it does sound exciting, and you'll certainly believe the programming is actual drums. Instead we see them rely on the time-honoured trick of dropping the music back down to basics midway and then building pleasantly once more. 'Fragments' is similarly restrained, but the key to their future development is how the dramatic vocal story is well delineated and the long mild passage here, which would have worked better on an album, is definitely attractive.

The zigzagging guitar and serious bass (good throughout) makes 'Fallen' seem slightly wilder but when the vocals come in, you know they're coming, and they just do what you expect, which is a shame. It's too much like they have a book of Functional And Successful Goth Songwriting laid out before them.

As a debut it is more then encouraging, but they really need to let rip when they get to that album.

FLIGHT
FRAGMENTS
FALLEN