AMANDA SOMERVILLE’S TRILLIUM – Tectonic

7/10

AMANDA SOMERVILLE'S TRILLIUM - Tectonic - 7/10

7/10

Summary

Frontiers Music SRL
Release date: June 8. 2018

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Listening to the new Amanda Somerville’s Trillium album Tectonic is smooth sailing. There’s Somerville’s smooth operatic voice, smooth guitars (provided by Somerville’s husband and After Forever alumnus Sander Gommans), smooth keyboards. Nary an edge in the entire package; even many of the lyrical themes are smooth, starting out with positivity-laden song titles like “Time To Shine”, “Stand Up”, and “Full Speed Ahead”. Even the harder rocking “Shards” is free from any jagged pieces, making Tectonic’s ten songs a sonically pleasing palette, the music bright and uplifting but perhaps an unintended consequence of the lack of edges is the tendency of the music to rush through the ears and into the brain and then out of mind completely. Happiness will ensue upon cuing up Tectonic; the listener will experience euphoric waves of good feeling that may well last for hours after. But when the album is over, the listener will be pleased with how beautiful and strong Somerville’s voice is and how competent the arrangements are, but they might not remember any of the actual songs they just heard.

Symphonic Metal, a genre where Somerville has an extensive, distinguished career, having worked with Avantasia, Epica, After Forever and a host of other luminaries, tends to favor albums over individual songs in creating its lasting effects and so the dearth of standout tracks isn’t necessarily a detriment here. One must wonder, though: was Trillium not a good enough band name on its own?

TUNE INTO METALEXPRESSRADIO.COM at NOON & MIDNIGHT (EST) / 6:00 & 18:00 (CET) TO HEAR THE BEST TRACKS FROM THIS UPCOMING RELEASE!!!

Author

Daniel Waters

Daniel was a reviewer here at Metal Express Radio. Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind wasn’t the first Metal album he owned, but it was the one that lifted the lid off his soul when he received the record as a gift on his 15th birthday. He's been a Metal fan ever since. He's probably best known as the author of various Young Adult novels such as the Generation Dead series and the ghost story Break My Heart 1,000 Times, now also a major motion picture entitled I Still See You, starring Bella Thorne. Writing and music, especially Heavy Metal music, has always been inextricably linked in his mind and career. His first paid gig doing any type of writing was for Cemetery Dance, where he wrote a horror-themed music column called Dead Beats, and when he was writing the first Generation Dead novel he had a ritual where he started his writing day with a Metal playlist that kicked off with “Crushing Belial” by Shadows Fall.
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