In This Moment is a hard rock / AOR band from Los Angeles. The band consists of Maria Brink (vocals), Chris Howath (guitars), Blake Bunzel (guitars), Jesse Landry (bass) and Jeff Fabb (drums). The Dream is the bands second major album - a hard rock opus designed to showcase the band’s songwriting prowess and Brink’s beautiful, angelic voice that is simply captivating.

There's a nice mix of musical styles here - from metal, to hard rock, to slow, beautiful ballads. Personally, I found the slower tracks ('Into the Light') to be much more satisfying as they allow you to appreciate the beauty of Brink's voice better here than on the tracks she simply screams her way through ('The Great Divide').

The first time I listened to this album I couldn't help thinking I'd heard large chunks of it before - a lot of the tracks took me back to my late teens and university days when I was a huge follower of bands with a similar style... bands that were never that well known, like AOR bands FM and Bad English.

Tracks like 'Forever', 'Mechanical Love', 'Her Kiss' and 'A Dying Star' show the band at it's liveliest and most mainstream rock. I was a little surprised to see a cover of Blondie's 'Call Me' stuck on here too. Bit of a strange choice, but it seems to work well.

Personally, I'm glad that AOR is still alive and well, even if it's a little off the beaten track as far as popularity - but then I suppose that has always been the case. The Dream is a well balanced offering that will appeal to all hard rock fans.

8

Darren Rea