| Breather's EP A Slow Red Whisper of
Rain was released in February of '98 and is the band's second release, the other being
a 4-song demo in '96. Breather is mainly comprised of Jessica Cook (Vocals), Alicia Skala
(Vocals, Guitar, Bass) and Scott Gockerman (Guitar, Keyboards) with a few different
drummers and an additional bass player credited on the CD. This trio is also responsible
for all of the songwriting and Jessica Cook provides the majority of the lyrics for the 6
song EP.
Breather serves up a reverby, swooshing style of rock in
the Cure, Depeche Mode vein. The performances are basically good from a technical
standpoint but overall the album is hurt by sub par production. My first impression was
that all of the songs sounded very similar and blended together into one long dream
sequence. Breather definitely has a very 'dreamy' quality to their music, a quality that I
believe is intentional on their part. A few more listens made it clear that the music
varied from song to song but what was not changing were the melodies and vocal delivery.
Jessica Cook sings every song with the same breathy, almost monotone delivery, which is
partly responsible for that 'dreamy' quality I mentioned earlier. However, I as a
listener, would like to hear her open it up a little bit and belt a line or two to let me
know she's still there. This begs the question, is she capable of belting it out or is her
style more the result of poor technique than artistic vision? I don't know the answer to
that question, only that I felt the consistent vocal delivery hurt the album as a whole.
In a nutshell, this is a promising effort from a band that
has a clear idea of who they are and the ability to keep a writing team together, which
can be half the battle. I have been told that there is a new CD on the horizon from
Breather and I look forward to hearing how the band has progressed in the last two years.
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