The first track has some catchy elements, and throughout the album there are points here and there which stand out above the bulk of the material as worth listening to again. For the rest of the time however I was left thinking that the style was not very original. I suppose like any genre it is easy to deliver the typical style – however impressive – and yet not expand the boundaries very much, and I think this is fair to say for Haunting Remains. The drums are standard for the genre, mid-paced to fast double bass passages, the guitars often seem a bit predictable and the inevitable vocal harmonies sometimes seem slightly tiresome. I don’t want to be unnecessarily negative because it is evident that the band are a competent group of musicians and songwriters, but judging it against many other bands and releases within this “neo-classical” genre, it is hard to find elements that catch the attention.

One thing I felt from time to time was that it may suffer from having only one guitar player. In sections where the guitar holds the main emphasis I felt it sounded a bit empty and could have benefited from a secondary guitar line, but perhaps this is just because the guitar riffs are quite passive and tend to take a back seat to let the vocals hold the melody. This is fair enough, but it puts more pressure on the vocals to be catchy and memorable, which they don’t always deliver on. The same can be said for the synth elements – sometimes they are effective but at other times they seem a bit distracting.

The band certainly deliver the appropriate conventions of the genre – neo-classical guitar soloing, speedy drums, constantly harmonised vocals and so on – but a lot of the songs remain a bit predictable and drawn out. Although the description in the booklet claims “every song features a different atmosphere” and to an extent there is variety from song to song (a nice old school moment in ‘Down in Flames’ for example), the whole album seems a bit dragging and predictable if listened all the way through.

There are some solid songs on this album, but after listening my only thought was that it suffered a bit with identity. Judging it on its own merits there are some well written songs and occasions that I think could be quite memorable after a few listens, but for the most part it is delivered very much within the box that it set out for itself with the original genre description. Listenable enough, but not very different from many other releases.

written by James Ashbey

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