Charlotte’s Shadow – Hush
My first impression concerning the album was that it is a celebration of guitar sound; in fact the deep, pounding sound of this instrument is prevailing on the whole CD. The vocal is weeping, crying, it reminds me The Cure a bit.
In the first part of the album the vocal line is rather subdued and it gives place to the instrumental part – mostly to the said guitar. The songs are of a moderate pace, they sometimes speed up like in “Hush” where the beat becomes stronger and also keyboards appear more visible.
“So wrong” – one of my favorite tracks – features nice rhythm and pace of the song. I like the melody that intermingles gothic vocals with rocky melody and even danceable elements at some point.
“Lonely life” is characterized by a bit ominous tones; it’s also a very rhythmical track, has this nice “catchy” intro that makes the ladies start moving their hips: the tones dive and go up, the melody rises and falls, altogether it’s second best track on the CD. The guitars intertwine together in a compromising way creating very melodious and harmonic entity.
“Show me” is also a dynamic song, it holds kinda Clan of Xymox guitar passages; one can also notice a tints of optimism there.
“Nothing is Enough” features Dire Straits like guitar intro and crying, aching voice, a sounds of tambourine, and in the background rather stable keyboard melody.
Generally speaking, the tracks of the album are melodic and rhythmical, definitely not aggressive, but rather moderate. Yes, I think balance is what characterizes “Hush” – balance and mixture of guitar sounds which combine classical guitar with those gothic, emotional ones. The end of the album is much more vivid and encouraging than the beginning, which at times may seem bland, but generally it is a decent piece of music for any guitar sound lover. On the whole it is an extremely homogeneous album – the prevailing thread about it is a guitar sound and the emotional vocals.
