Apparition – Drowned In Questions
Apparition are a Gothic Metal band from Birmingham who appear to have jumped on the same bandwagon as the likes of Lacuna Coil, Nightwish, Evanescence, Within Temptation etc etc. The only problem is that this bandwagon appears to have already been and gone, but I guess only time will tell as Evanescence are due to release their second album soon.
So, bearing in mind there is now an abundance of these euro-metal female fronted groups around, what makes Apparition different to the others. After a good hard listen to their debut album I have managed to provide you with the following answers:
They are British, unlike their Scandinavian/American counterparts. I'm not sure this is an advantage to the fans of this type of music or not, but hey it's different.
The only other real difference I can find is that essentially Apparition are like a supermarket BOGOF (buy one get one free) offer in the realms of female fronted bands, you get not one but two beautiful female vocalists for sexually confused teenage girls to ogle at.
Musically I'm afraid Apparition bring nothing new to the table sounding more like a tribute band than an original outfit. This doesn't surprise me however as guess who the band members list as their favourite influences; yep you got it amongst others Nightwish and Evanescence.
With the band's website appearing to be on its summer vacation, I turned to trusty Myspace to gather information on them. Amongst the obligatory myspace comments from 15 year old emo kids with badger hair was a representation of a group who have fallen straight into the whole 'Goth Cliché'. The site is full of photos of the female members scantily clad in strappy dresses and stilettos, doing Goth poses and holding candles.
Apparition need to break away from the sound they are currently producing and write some music which is more relevant to them, not the bands they aspire to be. Unfortunately the lyrics aren't the best either, cringe worthy writing we can expect from the Scandinavians, there is a whole language barrier in the way, but not from a British group who should be using English as their first language to their advantage over the others. It's like they took out their gothic rhyming dictionary as their inspiration. I can envisage song writing sessions in my head; 'hmm what rhymes with death and pain?'
The music is not particularly bad at all, it's just too repetitive. Technically the band sound apt and the main vocalist Annabelle do have a beautiful voice. There are times when echoes of legendary Gothic bands like The Mission can be heard within the music, but on the whole it is a disappointing listen I'm afraid.
If you are a fan of this type of music and simply want to expand your collection of your favourite current artists then you will love this album, but if you are looking for something different, you're not going to find it here.