Seeing Reflexion live is like trying to catch the Northern Lights. You have to travel a long way up North in Finland and they then only appear now and again.
For once Reflexion actually had some gigs south of Oulu and we got to go along to Helsinki's On The Rocks to see them. The guys were competing with several other big names in Helsinki that night so it was never going to be a sold out show, but there were still enough smiling faces there happy to see the band at last.
Despite forming way back in 1996, Reflexion have only released one full album to date, entitled 'Out Of The Dark' in 2006 and play very few live gigs. The 2nd studio album is due out in March 2008 and the setlist was mainly made up of the new songs, which we weren't too familiar with yet. Opening with 'Feeble Soul', frontman Juha immediately took centre stage with his glowing bright red hair. It can be quite difficult to take your eyes off him with his beautiful looks and amazing voice, which has quite a range.
A few new tracks followed, sounding very Reflexion-like, with nothing particularly different to the first album. 'Undying Dreams', their first single from from the debut album also got an airing, but the majority of the set consisted of new songs including the first two singles from the new album, 'Weak and Tired' & 'Twighlight Child'. But then there was one that stood out; a much more aggressive and rocky number called 'Embrace of Wrath' which had Juha shaking his hair and stamping his feet before starting the song's first verse with almost a thrash metal growl, and screaming expletives in the middle of the song. Reflexion with balls... I liked it. A couple of oldies followed. They played 'Army of Broken Hearts' before the band finished off with another new one, 'The one with no name' and performed 'Storm' as an encore .
This is a band that should definately do more gigs (and play their wonderful Roxette cover!) and could be a hell of a lot more popular with people outside Finland if only they could get more publicity and gigs. They're going to Russia soon, but if you want to catch their next show in Finland... yeah, you guessed, it's in Oulu.
pictures from Tampere, Feb 14th, 2008
reflexionmusic.com
15. Februar 2008
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