Andreas Heller and David Reumüller played as a duo called Reflector for over twenty years and released four albums in that time. Recently however, Martin Plass a talented singer and bassist for a band known as the Striggles, joined them. That was a sort of Bon Jovi style band and Plass has combined his melodic experiences with the heaviness of the established duo to great effect on the new release called simply, Turn.
Opener ‘Turning’ is one of the shortest of the seven tracks, at just shy of five and a half minutes and sets the stall out with heavy Sabbath riffing. Slow build leads to vocals over complex drumming and simple bass, resulting in a song that could have been on the Sab’s debut… if Ozzy sang in a lower, more spoken style. ‘Grim Reaper’ has a great drum led start that draws you in with its simplicity before the main Sabbathy riff hits. When it speeds up it stays heavy and yet more melodic. The solo eventually arrives with sustain and tremolo but doesn’t last long enough to add a variation that would have lifted this one. ‘Leave The Rave’ continues the barrage of ponderous riffs but interspersed with some simple and yet effective heavy drum work. It evolves into a Golden Earring playing Sabbath in my head, especially at the bridge where flavours of Moontan come to mind, which is a compliment. ‘If You Go Away’ closes the album with more of the same slow build, but this time the heavy riffing develops into a ballad but with the serious weight not letting up as the band slug it out behind the lyricism.
There isn’t a bad song here, but with the lack of variation makes it, literally, heavy going to listen in one sitting. In saying that if you like heavy heaviness, you will like this.
