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False Memories: Hybrid Ego System
False Memories - Hybrid Ego System Album Art

False Memories: Hybrid Ego System

Dark Heavy Gothic Metal
3.5/5.0

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Frontiers Music
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 06.06.2023 | Released: 09.06.2023

Hailing from Italy, female-fronted quintet False Memories returns with their third long-player, Hybrid Ego System. This album arrived after a musically busy two years. The band released a covers EP, Echoes Of Reflection, wherein the pay tribute to their influences and peers (such as Lacuna Coil and Paradise Lost). This was followed by a live EP, Live Until Twilight released digitally, and viewed on YouTube.) The new album arrives with new bass player Davide Tavecchia and a guest vocal appearance by Anette Olzon (The Dark Element, ex-Nightwish) on The Storm Inside.

False Memories Click For Larger Image

False Memories

I'll attempt to make this review brief. (Probably not happening.)

Honestly, False Memories musical style is outside (perhaps way outside) my metal wheelhouse. It's a mixture of melodic metal with symphonic, gothic, and dark metal influences. Their arrangements are heavy, dense, sometimes plodding, and so, often foreboding.


Singer Rossella Moscatello vocals were a particular challenge. Largely operatic, her voice is very high-pitched and piercing, almost redundantly so. I found myself dialing back the volume several times as I listened. Also, beginning with the second track, Holding On, the listener will find the injection of dirty/death vocals (by whom I do not know) in many of the following songs. As most constant readers know, I abhor death/dirty vocals. After Rise Again, I had my fill of the audio abuse, and stopped listening. (Eventually, I returned to the album later and finished. But it was a tough go.)

Moreover, my ears though there was a disconnect between the song composition and the vocals. Like music was written without Ms Moscatello's vocal contribution in mind. Examples could include Stains, Rising Tide, and The Storm Inside. But readers (and band fans) should listen to the videos, and make their own determination.

The aforementioned reads largely negative because I write as a listener, and one not so enthused by the genre at hand. Yet, more positively, as genre proponents, False Memories is very adept at creating and delivering dark gothic metal. Also, as with the previous album, guitarist and producer Francesco Savino (also Demons Down and T3NORs) delivers some exceptional guitar solos.

By way of conclusion then, though not my favorite metal genre, False Memories and Hybrid Ego System finds the band continuing a creative course in the dark gothic metal realm. If you're a fan of the band or genre, I have little doubt that you will enjoy this album. Again, check out the videos and support the band. Nuff said.



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The Take Away

Though not my favorite metal genre, False Memories and Hybrid Ego System finds the band continuing a creative course in the dark gothic metal realm. If you're a fan of the band or genre, I have little doubt that you will enjoy this album.

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