LEANDRA METAMORPHINE ALBUM E-WAVE, DRAKKAR RELEASE: FEBRUARY 22, 2008 REVIEW: FEBRUARY 25, 2008

There are quite the long builds to the tracks on this album and Sven Friedrich makes a guest appearance on the third track "The Art of Dreaming" but all in all this is fairly average, by the numbers, emotive goth music. The tinges of piano work our heroine employs do not remove her debut from the realm of festivals and darkly candle-lit caverns. In a nutshell, Leandra has some nice concepts she's playing with but they are not allowed to flourish; the predictable metal sounds rear their ugly head soon enough making me want to switch the damn thing off.

Much like a club night, you expect to hear the envelope pushed in only to be rewarded with 80:s anthems once the DJ:s run out of tricks, Leandra don't seem to be able to hold up for an entire album. There's a lot of filler on here, six tracks would have sufficed but the ten we are made to slough through deaden the pulse. Many will say that Leandra are romantic and elegant; I call it ponderous and overdone. Too much time has been spent on polishing ill advised tunes and not enough effort put into actually injecting some life into the proceedings. This thing just drains the life out of my ears.

Better luck next time and lose the kung-fu bandana will you?

PETER MARKS

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