I was quite excited when I stumbled upon the Welsh band, The Reasoning--mostly because Rachel Jones (now Rachel Cohen), formerly of Karnataka, was in this project. Her voice really amazed me in her former band’s album, so I was glad she found herself a new band after she left Karnataka. Though, after hearing some of the demo songs the band had up on their myspace page at the time I discovered them, I was even more intrigued—so how does the actual album compare with what I expected.

The music is definitely progressive rock; though think more of Magenta-type progressive rock rather than any kind of crazy progressive rock. The music is definitely catchy—most notably the fantastic opening track "Awakening". It’s an upbeat number with awesome vocals, great melodies, and a nice pace for an opening track (I’ve always thought faster numbers worked best for opening tracks rather than slow ones). The melodies presented will surely be stuck in your head long after your CD stops spinning. And about the vocals…

The Reasoning actually has three vocalists: Rachel Cohen, Dylan Thompson, and Gareth Jones. All three are mightily impressive on this album indeed. Rachel’s deep sensual vocals, Dylan’s rougher vocals, and Gareth’s powerful higher vocals are all quite different from one another—though they complement each other wonderfully. I can’t really say there is a stand out vocalist actually. All three do a great job.

Though, I must confess, after the track "Awakening" I was a bit disappointed. The songs were indeed good, though they all paled in comparison to "Awakening" for me. "Aching Hunger", "Sacred Shape", and "Shadows of the Mind" certainly have their moments. However, these moments unfortunately don’t last throughout the whole song.

This band definitely has a great amount of potential that is shown on this album. There are moments of greatness around, plus an excellent opening track. This band could be really great some day if they worked on their song-writing a bit more (all the ingredients are there—great singers and musicians—they’ve just got to put them together!). I would recommend taking a listen if you’re into the less complicated side of prog-rock.

7 / 10