Greg Puciato – Mirrorcell (Review)

2 years after the great Child Soldier: Creator of God and the accompanying live album Fuck Content, Greg Puciato and his (drum-) partner in crime Chris Hornbrook are back with Mirrorcell. An awful lot happened since then. So what is to be expected from the ever-changing and capable musical chameleon that is Greg Puciato?

One thing that is certain from the get-go is that you can only be wrong at guessing which way this journey goes genre-wise. After the debut, everything could have been possible. Going into an even more industrial-tinged direction (as on “Evacuation“) or more noise-oriented (“Roach Hiss“). There were so many genres perfectly on display.

“In This Hell You Find Yourself” and “Reality Spiral” kick the door open and from then on your are knee-deep in something between Grunge, Alternative and Metal. Armed with a great production by long-time producer Steve Evetts, this record sounds just great and kinetic, not clinical or over-produced.

The trio of songs released prior to this album “No More Lives to Go“, “Never Wanted That” and “Lowered” (featuring Reba Meyers of Code Orange) give a good impression of what to expect from this album. “No More Lives to Go” somehow reminds me of the Black Gives Way to Blue album by Alice In Chains while “Never Wanted That” is melodic Alternative Rock at its best. “Lowered” is such a great collaboration between two artists whose voices harmonize so great together. Since Code Orange also don’t shy away from trying “different” things this experiment couldn’t go wrong.

The second half of the album is a little less straightforward. The songs are longer and take their time to unfold. “Rainbows Underground” is my favorite song of the album. As mentioned before, I sense a heavy Alice In Chains atmosphere here. This kind of heavy melancholy and a chorus for the ages will be hard to top for any artist putting out music this year.

“All Waves to Nothing” closes the album like “September City” did on Child Soldier: gracefully. I could listen to the ending for hours. A song that sprung to my mind was “Fade to Black” (Metallica), which also has such a beautiful, never-ending melody ending.

Mirrorcell is a more than worthy successor of Child Soldier. Its strength lies in its unpredictability and sheer quality that is displayed here. Greg Puciato doesn’t even try to mimic something that might be expected from him (as if he ever did), he succeeds expectations by creating something no one has even thought of.