Brainstorm
MEMORIAL ROOTS
AFM Records

There was a point in the last 4 or 5 years that when I was asked who my favorite metal band was that BRAINSTORM would have been my easy answer. Their mixture of power and melodic metal on albums like Soul Temptation and Liquid Monster were was stunning. Sadly that euphoria was shattered with the release of Downburst in 2008. That album was flat and mostly uninspired and left me very disappointed. After a dozen spins I just couldn't attach myself to it and have not listened to it since. What I needed was a new album to erase Downburst from my memory and get the band back where they belonged. Fittingly the new release is titled Memorial Roots, almost as if they sensed what I was feeling. The question was whether or not the album could get the job done.

The short answer to that question is no. Memorial Roots finds the band still wallowing in music that I for one consider below their talents. Even a set of pipes as powerful as the ones owned by Andy B. Franck need something to sell the listener, and as good as Franck is there just isn't much here to work with. What made the band so exceptional to me in the past was their ability to switch back and forth between lightning fast rockers and hook laden melodic cruisers with equal effectiveness. A small example of each would be "Lifeline" and "All Those Words" from Liquid Monster. Examples like that are sorely lacking on Memorial Roots. I ran through the 11 tracks offered here waiting for something, anything, to jump out and grab me, but it just never happened. Worse still, even the trademark high quality BRAINSTORM production levels were absent. I had to crank the up bass on my stereo to the maximum just to get some bottom end on the album. The only song that I could say that I truly liked was "The Conjunction of 7 Planets" and I'm not sure if that's because it is a good song, or merely stands slightly above 10 other mediocre tracks. I honestly don't believe that there a single song on Memorial Roots that could have made the cut for Soul Temptation or Liquid Monster.

PITRIFF RATING - 5/10 - One dull album could be considered a fluke, two in a row on the other hand is arguably a trend, and a disturbing one at that. The whole genre of Melodic Power Metal has taken a hit over the last few years as the short attention span of listeners have moved on to other styles and bands. Albums like Memorial Roots don't help the cause. All music is cyclical and what was once all the rage will be again someday, but if this is the best BRAINSTORM has to offer at this point they may not be around when the rebirth happens.

Shawn Gould