Shadows & Mirrors - ARIA

Shadows & Mirrors is a darkwave act that I discovered through an E-Mail that was shot to our official address. While there isn't much history of the project available online, he is releasing his debut LP ARIA on August 11th and I'm here to discuss that a little bit. 

The first note I have on ARIA is that the vocals coming from Brian Diamond are less than stellar. Sometimes they reflect a quasi-hip hop approach such as on 'The Stranger' while other times they reflect older rock styles such as on 'The Sedative of Ceremony'. Diamond is able to flow with the rhythm of his songs, but being frank his voice just is not the most handsome thing to listen to in the world. The electronic effects that touch his voice do not really hide this, and don't really provide much more than a gimmick. 

On the production side of things, I cannot say that ARIA is spot on, either. When I started off the album the only thing that I could think was that this album sounded like it was mastered in an older era. We're in 2016 and I'll say that lately I've been spoiling myself by listening to some bands with top notch production values. But, even then, dropping this low was shattering to my music loving side.

The best song on the album by far would have to be 'In The Dark'. It takes a gracious, simplistic minimal synth approach and Diamond does this sort of whisper-singing which sounds better than any of his other actual singing. The actual singing is also there, but it's split between the whispers and instrumental sections. There are also some moments of industrial rock that break the barrier due to some crunchy guitar work. 

If Diamond could pull the same magic presented on 'In The Dark' with the rest of ARIA, then he'd be in much better shape and form. It's different, doesn't sound too bad, and minus the singing it can be quite spine tingling. But, seeing as how that talent isn't really brought out much on the album aside from that, I can't really praise it all too much. 

Still, if you want to check it out for yourself, here's a video for the song 'I Don't Mind' from the album:



Aug 13 2016