An enjoyable musical journey of many ideas.

It’s clear with some releases you have to take a little time to digest them and the let the true beauty of the music blossom on each listen. Akin are one of those bands, formed in France in 1998 they are a mixture of Within Temptation and Anathema.

Like most gothic style female singers Adeline Lucas has a distinctive tone that weaves some strange magic that sets the band apart from the competition. Opening song ‘The 92nd Flight’ is an impressive mixture of intricate guitar work and flowing melodies and sets the template for the musical style of the band. Having a spoken word poetry reading could be labelled pretentious but it works well in ‘Resilience’ and there is an obvious influence of Evanescence in the style of song writing, plus some beautiful flute playing which is a nice touch.

What sets Akin apart is the variety of moods offered in each song that takes you on a musical journey if you will. I especially enjoyed the laid back jazz style of ‘Miracles’ which morphs into a true prog classic; its clear the band have a great many ideas to offer from this song alone. There is an almost folk style to ‘Enter Spaceman’ and a truly sweet chorus to match, while ‘The Way Things End’ lets you drift off into a mixture of rhythms and complicated time signatures. The band display their more melodic talents in the track ‘No Second Ride’ and you realise there is something for everyone on this release which will always keep you returning to the music over time.

A personnel favourite is ‘Coma’ which has some wonderful time signatures but not at the cost of the melody, and it all becomes quite glorious in the space of a few minutes.

All in all, ‘The Way Things End’ is an enjoyable musical journey of many ideas, waiting to enchant the listener…

Ray Paul