Brainstorm – On The Spur Of The Moment

Some things seem like they repeat and they prove that once you’ve seen something coming, you may not be that wrong as you initially thought.  Such is the case of one of my always very loved bands on the power metal genre, Germany’s Brainstorm. I was very lucky to witness their progress since their first album ”Hungry”, back in 1997, it is true that they first gained my interest because this album’s cover had the famous Alien on it, so I thought about giving it a chance. It was a great start for me getting to know them, as their molten power metal riffs would be followed by great production and a very good singer back then, Marcus Jurgens. As albums passed by, they would never let me down and some of them would become very high in my playing list through the years like their second effort ”Unholy”. Then changes occured and we had the entering of the even better singer Andy B. Franck on the third album ”Ambiguity” in 2000. And this looked to be the right change Brainstorm needed to become an even better band, as it finally happened.

The band would follow a great series of albums filled with quality and inspiration, mainly every two years most of the times. Live gigs would increase and they would show their worth to many people around the world. It was then that they were given the characterization ”Europe’s Vicious Rumors”, as they would remind of the glorious American band to many people, both with their playing and their live skills. The thing is that you knew you would always get something really great from the band, and this used to happen until 2008 with the release of their seventh album ”Downburst”. Then it looks like someone closed the lights and the band got lost and trapped in a small room, like suffocating and trying to do something else which surely didn’t fit them at all. At first, these signs of change were shown with their previous album ”Memorial Roots” two years ago, an album which I still try to figure out how and why it was released, reminding nothing of what Brainstorm has always been. And having done the review back then, I was very pessimistic about the future.

Well, unfortunately I hit the spot and they let me down again this time, with their ninth album called ”On The Spur Of The Moment”. An album continuing the sound of ”Memorial Roots” and lacking everything I always liked in Brainstorm’s music, with the very heavy riffing coming first and the double bass great fillings following. Andy B. Franck is great once again in his vocal melodies but as in the previous album, he sounds like he’s holding back his true vocal abilities, lacking some nerve and power, focusing mainly on melody and at a steady basis of expression. This is not as bad as it seems but I personally can’t put up with it that much. The rhythm section could surely be a little more pounding and the guitars play on mid-tempo tunes mainly, taking away much of the elements that made the German band very obsessive in the late ’90s and early ’00s. And the bad thing is they don’t seem to understand it, because if ”Memorial Roots” was a one-off case, then coincidence doesn’t repeat itself, especially with ”On The Spur Of The Moment”.

Of course, this album is slightly better than the one it succeeds, as it seems there is still some life hidden in what I think to be as the Brainstorm corpse. The track that immediately gains the impressions is ”In These Walls”, that’s why they did a really great video clip for that also. ”Where Your Actions Lead You To Live” is maybe the best one, reminding a bit of their best effort so far, ”Soul Temptation” in 2003, and the last two tracks ”A Life On Hold” and ”My Own Hell” make things a little better. The limited edition contains two bonus tracks which are way better than the most in the album and it’s a question why they were not included on the standard edition, so if you catch up ”This Pain Is Mine” and ”The Heartless Spawn Of Seed”, you may like this album way more than I did, depending on which are your expectations from both the band and the power metal genre in total.

Unfortunately I love Brainstorm very much because they have given me the right to do this in the past. So I consider them stable on a way of playing it doesn’t flatter them and won’t take them anywhere, or so I believe. Melody is not totally against them, but this lack of energy is that makes every possible effort for experimentation rather unlucky. It’s not the point where we want the bands we like being stuck in a certain style and repeat it, no, this is not what we’re dealing with in this case. Experimentation and change are always welcome, as soon as they give you the feeling that they can lead to something interesting and convincing. And it’s the second time in a row -and this is why it hurts me more- that Brainstorm don’t convince me and I also don’t find them interesting. I really hope I will be proved wrong with the next album, but that’s what i also said with ”Memorial Roots” and I’m in the same position of disappointment. Let’s hope it’s not the final curtain fall for Brainstorm’s once glorious inspiration…