The best word I can think of to describe Logh's music is 'immature.' It is the sound of four people who aren't really aware of their own, and each other's, strengths and weaknesses, and therefore don't know how to take full advantage. They're voice is unique, but that alone can't save them, as undeveloped as it feels. I almost feel like I'm violating statutory laws just by listening to them.

Maybe it is Mattias Friberg's singing that makes me feel this way. He has a nice voice, from what little I can hear of it. Yet his singing is very quiet and subdued, so much so that the music often overpowers it. I'm not sure if I have a hard time understanding him because of an accent or because he doesn't sing with enough force. But this also gets into the issue of recording quality; it isn't mixed well enough to give that intimate feeling that is so necessary with such a quiet singer. A really good recording would allow me to close my eyes and imagine myself in the same room as Logh, but instead I feel like I'm sitting in the sound booth with ear plugs in. Even if it were better engineered, though, I think they would still sound embryonic, as if they are crawling along in the dark and waiting to find the spark of their full potential.

The opposites on this album are striking, and only prove to me my initial impressions of their lack of development. "Thin Lines," a slow and gentle song that almost seems abused by its own simple drumbeats, is followed by "The Bones of Generations," which could be the mellow song on a punk album. It isn't that these are necessarily bad songs. Together, though, the two reveal the schizophrenic approach of a band whose album is mostly quiet songs yet which plans to put out a cover of a Slayer song in the fall. The impact these disparities have on each other ricochets wildly across the whole album, punching holes in it.

This lack of reconciliation appears in other places as well. In "At This My Arm Was Weakened," Friberg's strain to sound angry merely makes him sound insincere. "Is this your/ Last offer?/ Is this your/ Final bid?" he sings, but it sounds like he's already given up trying to attain whatever it is he's bargaining for. To effectively be the lead singer of a band, one has to infuse the vocals with an emotion that may be missing in the neat, rhythmic forms of the music. Otherwise, it falls flat. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens on the more aggressive Logh songs.

There are a few rare moments when Logh manages to bring together their opposing sides into effective songs, such as in the first part of the build-up in "City, I'm Sorry" or the piano and guitar echo in the latter part of this song. But enthusiasm carries them past the point where it may be redeemable, thus crushing their potential beneath its heel. Delicacies are so special because they are so rare; there are many moments on "The Raging Sun" that I wish there were just a little less of. 4/10 -- Eden Hemming Rose (25 May, 2005)