CD Review: Reflections – "The Color Clear" (eOne Music / Good Fight)

If you were to cast off Reflections and their latest album The Color Clear as just another like-sounding, carbon copy metal band, you’d be making a mistake. While at first glance it might be easy to do just that, a few minutes with The Color Clear could change your mind. First and foremost, this is a pretty damn emotional record. Frontman Jake Wolfe candidly slits his wrists and bleeds onto wax time and time again with tortured lines like ‘I know I’m a failure in your fucking eyes / But it doesn’t matter to me cause your fucking blind / My entire life has been a waste of time / Falling for the same tricks in a different disguise’ and ‘I have no heart / I have no fucking heart / Everything I touch always falls apart / I’m done being treated like the dirt underneath your feet,’ found on “Shadow Self,” arguably the album’s best track and easily one of the most badass offerings you’ll hear anytime soon (that opening riff is madness, very Pantera-like). Elsewhere on The Color Clear, Wolfe spits ‘If I could die tonight / I wouldn’t think twice / I would take the step / Right over the edge’ (“Amulet”). Though its relatively easy to get lost in the waves of The Color Clear, there’s ample opportunities here to get your head above the water as it were (“Sadist” is menacing as shit, the post-hardcore of “Amulet” is a welcome change of pace,” “Actias Luna” is a rather expansive take on the bands core sound, complete with acoustic guitars). There’s no doubt The Color Clear is a well-written album, one metal fans should welcome with open arms.  

Grade: C+

Go Download: “Shadow Self”