Can someone please explain to me what in the blue hell is modern Metal? What makes it so damn modern? Is that even a type of Metal music? Oh wait, I get it, it's a fancy shmancy way to not say you're Metalcore...., never mind. Ok then, after that little rant, moving onto CONTRITION's debut album "Reflections".

From the very opening notes of the first track "In Distant Lights", it's pretty obvious that this band isn't too sure what their direction is. I don't know whether it's because it's the first album and the songs have been influenced by many different bands, or if the band has some sort of identity crisis, but they tend to move from Metalcore to Thrash, from Hardcore to Death. Second track "Hypothermia" only continues the confusion with its intro almost exactly copying the sound of "Beneath The Remains" era SEPULTURA while the rest tends to be a bit of a mesh of too much. And so we move on to "[al-kuh-hawl]" (or alcohol), more of a Nu Metal affair with some fast drum beats involved, but nothing more. "Sensory Perception" is the first song that caught my attention, while not particularly interesting, the song does offer the first glimpse at the potential with vocalist Nico Paidar letting go of his shrieks for a moment and singing a very good clean verse backed by a very nice melody, unfortunately that part is way too short at the beginning and end as most of the song turns into the rest of the album very quickly.

"Chaos Reigns" is a funkier Hardcore song, with some standard Metalcore clean vocals again mixed in. "Sunset Burns" was the next to catch my ears, but alas, once again the band goes back to the regular sound midway through the slow starting song. The record ends with "Timeless" which is a rather long song clocking at over 8 minutes, starting with a rather annoying guitar sound and PINK FLOYD copying vocals, while slow paced it's not much beyond a prolonged version of the other 9 songs we already heard.

While fans of the modern Metal genre might enjoy this, this record offers absolutely nothing interesting, the shrieks, screams and growls tend to grow old, sometimes not fitting at all, the guitars are overproduced, and the whole album tends to be on the boring side, it has potential, but at the moment it's neither here nor there.