Rinoa "An Age Among Them"

Rinoa are a special breed in that they are one of the greatest few who took the time to produce such quality strum showcasing. On their second release it's obvious they intended on exploiting their grandiose finish on their self titled EP.

     By far the album's standout is "Sol Winds" which soars heights to expose a colorful landscape that takes over the audio experience. The album then transitions to "Fires In The Distant North" which was captured on their split with Bossk. The track finds a good home sandwiched in the album and sets the ground for the next epic banger "An Empty Canvas" which starts so soft it could almost break, but develops well and builds a strong essence as it transitions through its motions.

     Rinoa plays so many different parts but there are bits of Burst collapsed with a slight tinge of Codeseven and maybe even Comity or Evelyn to boot. These are personally some of the highest accolades to be combined into a single sound, even though Rinoa is constantly catering its own sound completely. Their chords sometimes go on and on and never return and while you may think the group is going Will Haven on us, they suddenly stray and go off the deep end completely. Some songs take a bit to build up, while other tracks like "This Is Our View"  and "Memory" get right to the point and share Rinoa's angle in sentiments and melody and instantly get to rocking out and stay in uniform for the extensive duration of these extensively long tracks. 

     Perhaps Rinoa came at a time where the scene was confused and completely overlooked this quality act. It's a shame there isn't a way to reward these guys for their efforts somehow aside from sharing my thoughts on this release and trying to let it get some exposure. Even with having my eyes glued to new music outlets, blogs, sites, and countless other forms of media to try and capture the best of the best, I've managed to criminally overlook these albums that have been around since 2008. It doesn't seem like the magazines are getting it right and the majority of this stuff is stuck hidden in the depths of the Internet, but I guess in this case, it's better late than never.