They refer themselves as a Psyche Heavy Rock, yet they can't deny there's no genre to what you get when listening to ABRAHMAs' second album "Reflections In The Bowl Of The Bird". They come to us from Paris, France, and do... well... I don't know what it is they are doing. Though Psyche Rock is a very good definition to what's going on in that album (considering Psyche means everything that does not sound like anything else), the Heavy part refers not to fast or hard guitar, but to that heavy, lingering feeling you get while listening to them. Is not that bad of a thing, because those guys kind of know what are they doing and so they do it fine.

The album opens with "Fountains Of Vengeance". For a moment there it sounds like something absolutely dark and psychedelic, and for another moment heavy, fast and furious. It's when the vocals entre that the song gets its' doom-like feeling, and sounds like something overly dark and not so much related to the music. The guitars eventually line up to those dark annoying vocals, and remain that way for more or less the entire album. In all the songs, there's heavy machinery affecting every single sound coming. In the song "An Offspring To The Wolves" there's a nice line by the guitars or the heavily distorted bass. The down side to it is that it was so slow I almost fell asleep during the song.

The songs by the name "Omens" are, like in PINK FLOYDs' "The Wall", numbered parts 1, 2 and 3 and are spread in different parts of the album. Those three songs are calmer than the others, lighter and more soothing. The connection between the three is not that clear, but I do believe they are in some way continues to one another. Weird to say, but those songs are the least effected ones and it doesn't sound too bad.

Most of the songs in the album are long, as in plus or minus 5 minutes each long, which makes the album even longer and harder to digest than expected. It is so heavy and slow that even those 5 minutes seems like much more for each song. Yet towards the end of the album, the guitars get somehow heavier and the vocals get dimmer and not as much in the way. Such in "Omens Pt. 3", it is kind of a long instrumental part even though there are some vocals in the background. The vocals don't really harm the dynamic between all the other instruments, as some may feel in other songs.

In "A Shepherd's Grief", Ed Mundell, former guitar player for the group MONSTER MAGNET, is joined for a psyche amazing guitar solo. The vocals in this song are also better than all others, and generally it is a very good one even for those who do not enjoy the psychedelic genre. Some of the bands that influenced them the most are PINK FLOYD, as said before, and PARADISE LOST. Frankly, ABRAHMA sound like a very weird combination of the two. Generally, even though I appreciate both PINK FLOYD and PARADISE LOST, I am not the biggest fan of Psyche or Doom Rock. I think some bands are deliberately trying to have poor balance between the instruments, and I don't think anyone since PINK FLOYD had succeeded in the attempt to make a good thing out of it. ABRAHMA are not different than all others in that area. For all those reasons I did not enjoy this album very much, but I do believe there's a crowd for this kind of music much like any other.

So yes, I would say ABRAHMA know what they are doing, and whatever it is, they do it well. Maybe not for me but for someone else they'll do the trick. If you enjoy that Psyche Doom Rock, ABRAHMA is a good band to check out.