Brave

Despite numerous years and several albums of melodic metal making in the U.S., Brave have yet to achieve widespread recognition, largely, I suspect, because their music is difficult to place. A fluid mixture of rock, pop, metal, folk and classical, even within individual songs, Monuments may be too much of each to please any genre-dedicated audience. Melody is the unifying thread running through it all, from the rich vocal performance of front-woman Michelle Loose to the flowing guitar leads and violin countermelodies with which her voice intertwines. A little groove, brief touches of progressive experimentation and slivers of aggression all suggest that at any moment Brave could break into a full-on metal assault that never materializes. Flashes of brilliance escape through the restraint but tend to slide back into the general conglomeration, and Monuments concludes like unrealized potential.