Manzana - Nothing As Whole As A Broken Heart (CD)

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Finland's MANZANA present their debut full-length effort, armed with a bunch of tunes that, true to the band's origin, obsessively sleepwalk the thin line between love and hate so inescapably drawn during a passionate romance's final crumbling into decay.

Rigidly sticking to Pop Metal's well-tried hit-crafting pattern of quiet verses building momentum for loud, fist-raising choruses, Nothing As Whole As A Broken Heart aims for song-oriented, cut-to-the-chase immediacy. Concert-ready songs such as the album's first single Falling To Pieces or the EVANESCENCE-like, nu-metallic Valentine are filled with mind-sticking hooks, protectively surrounded by down-tuned riffs, spaced-out keyboard lines and flirtatiously whiny vocals.

Of course at times the extravagantly rich low end of Henri Wirsell's guitar digi-sound clashes with the keyboards' ever-present background playfulness to create moments of slight dissonance that occasionally blur the tonal focus of the melodies (e.g. this is what ultimately limits the memorability of  Pain's otherwise fine chorus), and Piritta Lumous' delivery can indeed now and then be a little too nasal for some tastes, but these are only minor flaws: Many will dig this one's no-nonsense, solo-free, gothically darkened edition of BON JOVI-esque '00s guitar-heavy Pop, others will scholarly dub this stylish, but essentially vacant, but few will resist singing along some of it.