TRAGIK – Tainted

Rock Company 2017

TRAGIK –
Tainted

Spoiled but alluring, harmonious hard rock trio dress down for the night on the tiles.

If the purpose of this album’s appalling artwork was to grab attention, the artists’ mission has surely been accomplished; whether their potential listener will embrace the allusion to the ’80s hard rock cliches and look past the cover is moot point, though – which is a pity, really, because such a cheap approach to visuals conceals a cache AOR-styled riches. There’s an ambitious dozen of songs where two epic pieces are par for the hour-long course whose melodic reach is arresting from the start, “Welcome Back” establishing a template of groovy rifferama and lush choruses, to the very end, where the pendulum of “Harsh Reality” swings wildly, with the same panache as the sharp, rock ‘n’ rolling title track.

As the band’s leader Phil Vincent and Damian D’Ercole trade guitar licks, while Dirk Phillips’ drums up the disco drama on “Into The Great Unknown” before “‘Til I See You Again” bares the bluesy, if optimistic, angle of the song’s enterprise, the infectious “Face Of Sorrow” may measure the metal edge of the ensemble’s method, yet keyboards-driven cuts like “Not Over You (Listen)” shamelessly take it all to the dancefloor to shake the night away. They also introduce adventure to the proceedings and spike the flow with filigree heaviness, until the piano-led “Heaven” reveals the full scope of cosmic despair behind this valorous affair. Strip the artwork and tune in, then.

****

February 28, 2018