TRISTANIA
Illumination (SPV Records)
Reviewed by Eric Saeger

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One thing you learn in Music Critique 101 is never to trust press releases. If a press release promises a band sounding like "the second coming of David Bowie" - particularly if the blurbage came from the keyboard of a random-praise-generator guy/guyette from Spin or Rolling Stone - you can expect something that's a lot like Babyshambles, or worse, if there is such a thing. This here "Evanescence-soundalike" dame, Tristania, a completely unachievable megahottie from Norway, doesn't have a Marky Mark boytoy tossing asexual counterpoint lines at her, just some out-of-work kraut-rock vampire-baldy, and what this really sounds like is Elise, but since you've never heard of that band it's a not-totally-laughable unreturned high five to Sisters of Mercy, Nephilim and Lacuna Coil, swiping Sarah McLachlan's "I Love You" along the way to prove that Tristania is aware that there is a device called a "radio" and that it plays music.

© 2007 - Eric Saeger