Artist: Memoira
Title: Memoira
Type: Album
Label: Nightmare Records

Once upon a time, there lived a princess; hair like silk and skin pure as the snow. She had been promised to a young prince, who whilst handsome and good looking, was also rather cruel and possessive. One day, the beautiful princess was at the ball, where her gaze became entangled with that of a peasant and it was love at first sight. But alas, she would later say; it cannot be, as if my prince finds us talking he will have you executed. So the princess returned to the castle and carried on with her life, unaware that she had been spied on by the princes ugly stepsister, who, desperate for acceptance from her family, informed him of his fiancées rendezvous at the ball. The princess was taken to a formidable tower where she would be kept under lock and key for the rest of her life. You will be mine, said the prince, and no bride of mine shall be seen cavorting with lowly peasants. The princess cried a thousand tears, perched on her windowsill as she dreamt that some day her true love would return to rescue her from this evil mans grasp. One day whilst she was sleeping, she heard the sweetest sound, drifting up through the window and eyes still encrusted with sleep, she wandered across the room being lead by the sweet serenade of her love. I have come to rescue you, said the pauper. Come, and we shall run away together and live in my kingdom in the sky. With that, he took a swig of a magic potion, which enabled him to fly up to the window and carry the princess to the ground. They rode by horseback into the distance, and they lived happily ever after.

Okay, I never said I was Hans bloody Christian Andersen but as far as fairy tales go, I think that is fairly standard. It uses all the sought after clichés without being particularly inventive, was put together without a great deal of thought and yet to its niche audience which in this case would be the kind of 7-year old girls who dress in pink and model themselves on a piece of plastic, it would do fine. This album is a bit like that too. Like it or not, every genre has its ocean of bog-standard acts with only a small minority that elevate above it, and Memoira have just belly-flopped straight in there somewhere between Magika and Evanescence.

As far as workmanlike femme metal goes, this is all well enough executed and certainly doesn’t warrant a total verbal battering, but really, this just seems to encompass all the things that have ever annoyed me about this style. The first half of this album is, in part, horribly twee, with that cringe-worthy happy-ever-after “woo this is my destiny” vibe both to the lyrics and the music that make me want to bang my head against the wall and then go jump of a cliff; it’s a hideous trend both in female singers and in power metal in particular that instantly has me reaching for the puke bucket every time, although perhaps that says more about me and my disdain for any theory that we humans are too weak and pathetic to map out our own destiny and create our own free will, than it does the music. Ironically enough though, ‘Destiny Of Yours’ is one of the better tracks on here, as while it begins with a rather dreary, over-sentimental piano part, it soon revs up with some metallic guitar riffs and a nice neo-classical keyboard flourish. ‘Experimenters Farewell’ on the other hand is bland from start to finish, with limp and languid keyboard driven verses that pootles along at 5MPH .

Midway through the album things do seem to pick up. There’s a lot of depth and atmosphere in ‘Shadow Of My Name’ while the guitar riffs are delivered with a real crunch. I really like the intertwining male/female vocals on this one and am reminded a little of Lacuna Coil, while it is also delivered with a symphonic gloss. This does tell me that the band has more in them than they are letting on here, and certainly gives me some hope that their next album will be a big improvement on this. ‘Amortization’ makes for a pleasant outro, with an upbeat pace and some rather mystifying keyboards. ‘Half Alive’? hmm, perhaps that’s a good way to describe this album; the first half could send even the most chronic of insomniacs to sleep, though while the second half is nothing groundbreaking, it certainly exudes more life. The one thing that baffles me is on a trip to Amazon, an unknown band like this can have 2x 10/10 reviews and a load of waffle about how exceptional they are. Of course I’m sure there will be plenty who disagree with me, but this just smacks of shameless self-acclaim. This isn’t a terrible album, it’s just rather dull and lacking in original ideas though I’d look forward to hearing what they come up with in future.

http://www.myspace.com/memoira
http://www.memoira.net/

Luci Herbert

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