In This Moment - The Dream

Though markedly less powerful than its considerably darker predecessor, The Dream brings to mind the likes of Lacuna Coil and Evanescence with its crunching guitar sounds and lead vocalist Maria Brink's deftly striking tone.

It is on opener Forever that the band bolt from the gate, taking the initiative and running headlong with it through a tirade of guitar licks, drum kicks and choruses large enough to level a skyscraper. It's probably not too wide of the mark to suggest that the band's slightly toned down sound actually does them some favours. The songs here don't seem so cluttered, so messy - credit to producer Churko.

For a man whose resum� is littered with pop kittens a la Britney Spears and Celine Dion, he does a fine job of giving the band a much-needed mainstream makeover, one that shines through on marked highlights Lost At Sea and Violet Skies.

Brink still brings the occasional scream to the fore, but for the best part The Dream sits somewhere between the band's debut and that of Lacuna Coil - powerful alt-rock for a stadium generation. And that isn't a bad thing; the songs here have depth and avoid the needless trapping of repetition, instead relying solely on Brink's enigmatic vocals and a good mix of hearty aggression on the part of her bandmates. Collectively it's a deeper, more fulfilling album, one the wholesale fan can immerse themselves in to the very end, and one the band can be proud of.

Occasionally things can get a little maudlin, such as on the disc's rather generic album-ending title-track, but it's a very slight bump in an otherwise smooth ride through knockout punch after knockout punch.

On the whole, In This Moment may have to suffer the loss of a few fans in order to gain a legion more, but on the strength of The Dream it's a percentage game very well played indeed. Give It A Name watch out, your new favourite rockers are coming.

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