CoC : Fragile Hollow - Effete Mind : Review

Fragile Hollow - _Effete Mind_
(Avantgarde Music, 2003)
by: Jackie Smit (4 out of 10)

"Imagine a wonderful mixture between Him and Katatonia/Anathema", reads the Fragile Hollow bio. If "wonderful" is defined as virtually every single irritating, cliched and annoying element to be found in the aforementioned bands (all of whom I actually enjoy), then I'd say that the description is rather accurate. Fragile Hollow certainly do remind one of bands like Sentenced and Anathema, albeit with a serious throwback to the big-hair glam-metal days of the '80s, but at the same time they don't seem able to conjure up a single strand of originality for the entire duration of _Effete Mind_. Instead they give us songs like "Disgusting", "I Don't Believe in Love" and "Confusion"; each sounding as tired and overplayed as the next. Combined with an, at times, almost amateurish performance, the record's only saving grace is "Come Undone" -- a song of such higher comparative quality that it sounds positively out of place on this collection.

(article published 31/5/2003)