After not even one year Norwegian all star band WINDS serve us their first full length album Reflections Of The I, the successor of the promising debut EP Of Entity And Mind. I bought this CD a little bit later when it was released in the states. Because in doing so I got the EP as a bonus for the same price, which has to be 11$ and that mates, is really cheap (compared to Germany)!

On their new album the guys follow the same roots consequently they adopted once before. That means that they have sophisticated the basic structures a lot and straightened out the deficiencies they made on the EP. Instead of the dominant piano parts WINDS focus now on a string ensemble, done by an orchestra of the philharmonics in Oslo. This little piece of an orchestra is actually the major part on this album and enriches the music with a tremendous amount of moods and facets and lends Reflections Of The I this unique fascination.
In this way the contrary piano tunes dropped out which still have lent this slightly avant-garde touch to the EP.

In fact, Reflections Of The I sounds much more harmonic and self-contained. Though WINDS obviously could not resist to place a few disharmonic tunes on the opener Clarity - done by the strings as a musical contrast. Also the piano parts are still dominant which goes more back to the background later. Clarity seems to be the bridge from the EP to the new album and retains the musical context.
As a result of this effort you get again an impressing masterpiece of romantic melancholic melodies with a lot of classical elements and bouncing guitars. Once more the musicians behind WINDS give proof of their exceptional skills.
It is hard to describe what kind of feelings and moods this album can create. Because every time you are listening to Reflections Of The I it will hit another nerve in your inside. You have to figure it out by yourself.
This time the voice of the singer and Norwegian Grammy Award winner Lars Eric Si is much softer, sometimes even weak and steals the whole production a little bit of its power. Also the drums and guitars I have in memory are more powerful on the EP than on this album. Because here it gets combined Neoclassic with Metal very skillfully the production could bear a bit more punch on the metal section.
The line-up you might know did not change. Drajevolitch still spends his deep tonal colour for the spoken words. Only Lars Eric Si has added the bass lines to his voice. The man behind the knobs was again WINDS mastermind Andy Winter.
Finishing I would like to mention that big Arcturus fans still will hear out the musical relations between WINDS and the quieter parts on Arcturus albums such as Aspera. Well, the influences from Hellhammer and Tideman you can not deny ...
A captivating and beautiful album!