I think that's a good beginning but Grindstone suffers also from the fantasy of its creators. I mean it's full of good ideas but you can hear the music is pretty young. It just needs to follow a more defined direction, instead of switching from jazz to progressive rock, then to hardcore and then to noise and finally to electronic music. So you can understand here that Grindstone is a very rich album but more effort should be put on the work on the structure of the successive songs. Cohesion is the main missing point here. I was about to say that's a pity but apart from that, there are also some really interesting ideas.

"In the Kingdom of Kitsch You Will Be a Monster" is the first song off Grindstone and I have to say it's a good title for it. It's kind of cheesy but you notice from the beginning that there's a great part of progressive music in the Shining touch as well. The production itself all through this album is indeed rather progressive than really metal-like. The guitars' distortion is not maximum which is quite unusual, right? The sound reminds me a little bit of hardcore style though since it's less heavy and low than what you get in extreme metal music but still it's really agressive to the ears. And it can be really quick also and apparently messy but after a while you realize that it's violent but always very well done. The "noisy" part of the production is actually the reason for this messy impression. I would say that the major influences that you can sort out of Grindstone are Dream Theater for the progressive touch and Dillinger Escape Plan for the more agressive parts always under perfect instrumental control. But most of Shining's ideas really come out from nowhere. For instance, "Moonchild Mindgames" and its 200% cheesy keyboard parts and those weird sounds that create a real sci-fi atmosphere I would say. Then with "The Red Room" you get a jazz intro that turns into a noisy trumpet orchestration. But I would like to come back to this sci-fi atmosphere: this is for sure what I prefer after a while keeping on listening to this CD.

Indeed my favourite song of Grindstone is the eighth track called "To Be Proud of Crystal Colors is to Live Again" (the second one with this title apparently) and this one is really full of mystery. It's something really amazing that Shining managed to do with this song. Actually you enter here a deep synthetic universe with very well used electronic items all along this track, especially the vocals. And according to me, the magic of this song is due to the contrast that you get when the wonderful soprano voice by Ashild Skiri Refsdal comes in. Her vocals bring a romantic touch and the mixture of both these elements is just something genius.

That's why this not so consistent album is a bit frustrating but at the same time that would have been almost unbelievable to keep such a perfection during 45 minutes. What I wonder is what audience this music is addressed to. I mean I don't think that metalheads are necessarily ready for this kind of Unidentified Musical Object. But the choice is yours and you can always show me I'm wrong!

written by Hubert Chapuis

Playing time: 44: 07