If you’ve ever listened to Dope Stars Inc. and thought “man, I wish that was a bit heavier”, then boy do I have a band for you: DSI’s compatriots, Reasons Behind. Now, I love Victor Love and Associates, and I have a very specific soft spot for their big, over the top ballads, like Just the Same for You and Can You Imagine, but can you imagine if they’d made an entire album with the sort of intensity found on Bang Your Head? While keeping all the bratty cyber attitude, dystopian attitude and all those synths? I don’t need to imagine; I’m listening to it.

Like so many of the best albums, Zero Love sets out its stall early on, and by the end of its 1.33 runtime, you absolutely know what you’re in for. Wailing, pounding electronics, earnest, catchy hooks about the end of the world (and it’s all our own fault for the most part), and soaring riffs that somehow manage to be both every bit as harsh as you could wish, and ridiculously bouncy. Last week I described my new favourite band, Omnikoloss as “disco black metal”, and this is in the same vein, only without so much as a black metal growl in sight. This is pure, unashamed disco metal, and whether it’s your thing or not, I defy you to stay still in the face of this album, especially after a few drinks.

So in short, this is frankly a very difficult album to dislike – not that some of you won’t give it your all, don’t get me wrong. And normally I’d be with you. I was unlucky enough to be doing press during that period many years ago when every second new band was a Nightwish wannabe, and doubly unlucky enough to be the only female writer on the team of the site I wrote for at the time: because girls like that sort of thing, don’t they? And no. Absolutely not. I heard enough of it to last me a lifetime. But despite being female-fronted and ostensibly symphonic power metal (according to the bible – AKA Encyclopaedia Metallum anyway), I’m fully – and surprisingly – on board with Reasons Behind. First and foremost, they’re not trying to be Nightwish or anyone else, and as you’d expect after three albums, an EP and thirteen years, they’re clearly very comfortable in themselves and their own sound. Also, the female vocals here are an integral part of the sound, rather than just wafting over the top for no obvious reason. I wasn’t familiar with Reasons Behind before I got this album for review, but I already can’t imagine this album without Elisa Bonafè’s vocals weaving their way through it.

Also, Elisa Bonafè is worthy of note in her own right. She has a gorgeous voice and a fantastic range, both in the literal sense of notes, but also a very strong emotional range. There’s a lot going on this album, and she holds her own and carves out space for her vocals in the face of what could so easily be an overwhelming backdrop of noise. The intonation causes issues in a few places – it’s all too easy to pick out the songs that she fully understands the nuances of and/or really enjoys singing – but she’s clearly not singing in her first language, so I’m not going to nit-pick on that subject. And really, it’s not just about language and intonation: some tracks on this album land significantly better than others.

Essentially, you can divide this album into three parts. It’s not so much the good, the bad and the ugly – more the very good, the not so good, and the so nearly good. This is mainly because Reasons Behind have a very carefully crafted formula, the success of that formula relies on maintaining a very delicate balance. Straying too far from the formula takes this album into straight, fairly uninteresting symphonic metal that falls headfirst into cliché, but on the flip side, sticking to the formula too rigidly results in tracks where the conflicting elements don’t quite come together. Which is why I’ve set up the three categories above – this isn’t simply good vs bad; this is the really good bits vs the generic bits where they’ve wandered away from the formula, vs the almost really good bits where there hasn’t been quite enough thought put into how everything works once it’s put together.

So what is the formula? The formula is fairly straightforward symphonic power metal with a powerful (mostly non-operatic, although she has had opera training, and it shows) female vocalist, but with ferocious synths and electronica mixed in where many lean on guitar solos and gratuitous classical instrumentation (don’t worry, there are guitar solos here, they’re just not the focus). It’s a genuinely interesting take on a genre that I’m not usually a big fan of, and when it all comes together, I actually love it. The not-so-good end of this album tends to be where the electronica goes out of the window, the lyrics veer into cliché, and the result is pretty uninspiring for the most part. This is Phantom Pain, Seas of Grey and Letter to the Last of Us, all of which would benefit from more of what makes the rest of the album so much fun to listen to. The oh-so-nearly parts, namely Heart Begins to Break and New Breed are where the electronica, female vocals and metal meet as per the formula, but the song-writing is significantly weaker than elsewhere on this album – the formula is a good one, but it can’t create good songs on its own. Both of these tracks have elements that I really, really love (especially New Breed), but the overall result doesn’t quite work.

Right, that’s the bit I wasn’t looking forward to, all written and out of the way. Let’s get into the other half of Architecture of an Ego: the very good (and occasionally very, very good). This consists of the five tracks not mentioned in the previous paragraph: Zero Dawn, The Fall of the Human Race, Into the Break of a Better Day, I3 and The Flame Inside. Zero Dawn doesn’t really count as it’s a fairly short instrumental intro, but it does that job admirably, so I’m putting it in here anyway. The Fall of the Human Race is one of the weaker tracks in this category lyrically, but musically it’s enough of a powerhouse that you end up hooked regardless, and what’s going on behind the lyrics is compelling in its own right.

The last three tracks are the pinnacle of what Reasons Behind are presumably trying to do here, and they’re frankly in a different league to the rest of the album. Into the Break of a Better Day, has pounding synths, glittering power metal guitars, lyrical hooks, and it is glorious. I3 is more of the same, with what is easily the strongest storytelling on the album, and some whirling, chittering synths interplaying with the vocals that are frankly bizarre, but also fantastic. Then we have The Flame Inside: this is, to be brutally honest, verging on actual genius. The catchy electronica, driving beats, ridiculous vocal hooks, wanton guitar solos, and the sheer power metal cheese of this track is absolutely spectacular. It’s not even just catchy and over the top for symphonic power metal – you could enter this track in Eurovision and make the rest of the field look restrained – yes, even fellow Italians Måneskin. If the entire album was of this sort of calibre, I might even be moved to give out another perfect score, however much the metal purists might clutch at their metaphorical pearls. It’s got a chorus to belt out with thousands of others at a festival, and I would have absolutely no shame in doing so.

So, in a nutshell: I can pretty much take or leave exactly half of this album. There’s nothing horribly, egregiously wrong with it, it’s just not very exciting, or doesn’t quite come together. The rest of it, on the other hand, is magnificent and already in regular rotation along with other new delights I’ve discovered this year via ye olde press list. How you feel about the two halves will depend entirely on how you feel about straight symphonic power metal and having weird, contortionist electronica shoehorned into it. I suspect some of you may prefer the straighter stuff like The Phantom Pain, and possibly be upset and confused by what the synths are getting up to in I3, but that’s ok. Just as long as you appreciate the really good bits in all their weird, cheesy, catchy glory. Or else.

(8.5/10 Ellie)

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https://reasonsbehind.bandcamp.com/album/architecture-of-an-ego