Very few bands can triumphantly handle two completely different layers of sound, and despite a good effort from this Californian band they don’t seem to make their technical sound fit Francine Boucher gothic vocals.
The Forgotten Goddess is not an easy album to listen or understand, and that’s good, it challenges you to go beyond the superficial attention span that merchandising music has created all around us, and it forces you to interpret and focus on the hidden multidimensional layers that the band likes to work with.
Their “experiment” mainly contains two sides to it, the technical side that could be remindful of bands like Anata, brought forward by the guitars and the Goth approach injected by Boucher’s beautiful and melancholic voice, which is covered with effects and echoes that make her sound thicker and deeper, a good approach for some tracks I think but not for the entire album.
My biggest problem with the album is the lack of more converging segments in which both styles merge and created a clearer picture of their intentions; Boucher maintains a predetermined line and the rest of the instruments another, sometimes the song is too heavy for her vocals and sometimes the speed of the tracks is exaggerated for no reason whatsoever.
There is nonetheless some moments in which Echoes of Eternity introduces something that sounds like an acoustic guitar which explores and drowns you into the grief Francine Boucher is capable of expressing, but those segments are two small to rescue the album from just been a rarity.
But like I said at the beginning of the review, The Forgotten Goddess doesn’t give you anything easy, it may take you a couple of spins before you realize you love their style or it just doesn’t quite make it into your favorites, what ever the case is, this is not simple music.
