Review: Brahman “A Forlorn Hope” CD

Apparently this band is extremely popular in their native Japan, but I honestly can't really determine why. There's definitely some promise to this material, which is basically poppy alternative rock or something, blending lightly pop-punk influences with little hints of post-hardcore or emo/indie rock, but it coming off as overly jumbled stylistically and it's nothing that blows me away at all. Sure, the chorus to "Basis" is really energetic and memorable, and there are other such moments throughout the disc, but the writing is pretty inconsistent in my opinion. Also throwing me for a loop is that fact that all of the lyrics and song titles are presented in English, when in fact it sounds like damn near every note is sung in Japanese. He is singing in English at least sometimes, but it sounds so warbled and strange that it's really hard to tell what's going on there. So, when it comes to catchy sing-along type of songs language barriers like this do of course throw a wrench into things. Most of the songs are midpaced and deal with a variety of distorted chord progressions layered with additional textures and a few clean breaks, but the clean breaks aren't generic (I'm not saying they're good, but at least they're not typical). The vocals are a bit of a significant weak link though, as there are no harmonies and the performance is pretty one-sided overall (compared to the music). "Deep" is heavier and brings in chunkier chord progressions and shouted backup vocals, which isn't bad, but the clean parts are weak and make no sense within the context of the song at all, killing an otherwise rockin' tune. "Sliding Window" is an instrumental with lush clean guitars opening into a weird folky surf rock ska sort of thing or something (all using clean electric guitars), so... do the math... it's all over the place. Then there's "Box", which sounds like a Bad Religion via Pennywise kind of song or something, and it's actually one of the catchier tunes despite being unoriginal. "Mis 16" is a cover by some band called Semilla, and it's actually got some really awesome guitar parts, blending involved clean passages with acoustic guitars and more crunchy pop-punk rhythms, making for another general standout. The recording is interesting, so that works. It's pretty warm and they have a nicely unique guitar sound that's really open and lets the chords ring out a lot, while the bass and drums stick together and the vocals are fairly low-key in the mix. It could sound a little brighter, but it definitely works as is. I'm 50/50 on the layout. The art's not so bad and there are some cool live photos of the band, but the way the photos are collaged together inside is kind of weak, and the red text over the dark backgrounds is hard as hell to read, making the lyrics even harder to decipher. For the most part things seem to be somewhat abstract and deal with bleak personal turmoil and isolation and things like that, so... run with that. There are a couple of well presented live videos on the CD-Rom, but that adds little to an already musically lacking release. I don't know, I'm surprised Revelation released this, it really seems like a stretch. They'd have some potential as a pop-punk band in my opinion, but the writing is too disjointed and the vocals aren't really beneficial to the strengths the riffing does have to offer, so... I've gotta pass on this one.