Orphan Skin Diseases – Dreamy Reflections (2018)

01. Into a Sick Mind
02. Flyin' Soul
03. The Storm
04. Rapriest (Stolen Innocence)
05. Do You Like This?
06. As a Butterfly Grub
07. Awake
08. Leave a Light On
09. Sorrow & Chain
10. The Wall of Stone
11. Waves
12. Just One More Day: She Was (Intro)
13. Just One More Day: Fatherend
14. Just One More Day: She Was (Outro)

Gabriele Di Caro - Vocals
Dimitri Bongianni - Vocals & Backing Vocals
Juri Costantino - Bass
David Bongianni - Guitar
Massimiliano Becagli - Drums

“Dreamy Reflections” is the title of the debut album of the Italian four-piece oddly named ORPHAN SKIN DISEASES (OSD) that I’ll be reviewing today. The musical style of this band hailing out of city of Florence could be described as Melodic Hard Rock with Alt-Metal, Prog-Metal and Heavy Metal influences. A look at the band’s bio shows that its members are all active musicians, so one can expect that these guys are a bit more ambitious and eager to deliver a good Rock album than your average pub Rock band.

From listening to the first song “Into a Sick Mind” one can gather that OSD are fond of melodic, catchy but depressive Hard Rock not all too dissimilar to Alt-Metal bands popular in the early 2000s like GODSMACK. This song and the following track “Flying Soul” are decent, they have good hooks and are competently written and executed, but they don’ t get me all to excited. It is the third song “The Storm” that really got my attention. For one it has pretty cringy lyrics: one line goes (I paraphrase a bit): “give me a reason not to stop my stupid life”. I guess the guys didn’t get the memo that if you don’t want to sound like a twelve year old Emo kid you have to use metaphoric language to convey certain messages. But as far as the music goes the song has sense of urgency that is really captivating. I think it’s one of the stronger cuts on the album.

Another song where the band shows itself capable of conveying strong emotions through their music is the following song “Rapriest”, that presumably deals with sexual abuse by a priest. The verse is groovy and aggressive and the chorus is really angry and emotional, which fits the theme of the song well. “Do You Like This” is an interesting cut, because it is a bit of a departure from the Hard Rock Sound of the album. It features a nice NWOBHM inspired riff and aggressive, almost Thrash metal vocal delivery. Some songs, on the other hand, almost venture into Pop Rock territory like with the melodic, super catchy song “Awake” which I feel could do well as a single. The band has a knack for slower emotional songs or ballads as well – Italians just have a penchant for melodrama and melody, I suspect. “As a Butterfly Grub” is one of the slower songs on the album that happens to be quite a good tune, “Just One More Day” is a great ballad that is emotional without being cheesy. The chorus is so huge that one could even imagine to be sung by some big Pop Rock star.

The album is one hour and ten minutes long, and on an album of this length there are bound to be weaker songs, especially n a Hard Rock album. The album has great moments, but unfortunately some “just OK” moments, which I think is a shame, because OSD are a band that is capable of giving expression to their emotions through their music and the album does have some really strong songs. The length (or “lack of editing”) and the fact that the album does feel stylistically a bit incoherent – it is a bit of a mixed bag, as you can tell from the review – would be my biggest problems, the occasional cheesiness and cringiness I can live with. Overall, a pretty strong debut from these Italians. If you’re a Hard Rock fan give this a spin. ---Martin Knap, metal-temple.com

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