seven

this is the new offering from covenant containing three remixes of new "tour de force" and original version of "it's alright". as with "europa", the first impression from the cd was rather negative; I was not expecting bleak and ordinary sound that "tour de force" seemed to be.

if later on "europa" grew on me to become one of the best covenant releases, I still cannot credit "tour de force" to be something more than ordinary covenant. the music, the dancy melody, the light catchy beats together with familiar vocals are there, but the melancholy and grace last covenant was famous for is not there.

two remixes (by haujobb and j. cosmo) are rather "faceless", but curiously interesting minimal techno/dancy versions of the title track. haujobb's remix failed after the band tried to introduce minimal elements into the mix that simply do not mix well with the overall song atmosphere. another track on the disk - "it's alright" doesn't sound like covenant at all with distorted beats and broken melody.

altogether, this is not a bad release, but definitely less than what I was hoping for - probably the case with almost every highly anticipated release. give it a chance - you might discover something I have missed.