"Duality" an apt title for a quality disc

As promised tonight's musical rant is my review of Duality by Ra. Those of you who what Sunday Night Football on ESPN may be familiar with Ra's initial radio hit "Do You Call My Name" from their debut From One. For the majority of From One, Ra reveals a style of harder edges rock/metal with clear Egyptian and other Middle Eastern influences. Their sophomore disc Duality shows a clear evolution in style while not fully abandoning the harder edge from the first records. The first single "Fallen Angels" is an aggressive fast-paced dealing with paranoia and the fear of influence from outside negative forces (and coincidently my probable new theme song). "Fallen Angels" anchors the initial half of the disc which deals almost exclusively with fear, loss, and recovery. The latter half deals with love and all its positives and pitfalls. Each set has a distinct, interesting spoken intro which creates the appropriate mood shifts to more easily convey the messages in the album. To fully explain to shifting musical styles I will you a few examples. The album in general goes through a decrescendo from start to finish with "Fallen Angels" being the hardest track and the final track "Swimming Upstream" being an outstanding fully acoustic closer. Song in the middle of the album artfully blend acoustic and electric elements along with some very interesting and effective lyrics. The album in my opinion has four absolute standouts in "Swimming Upstream","Fallen Angels", "Superman", and "I've Lost Everything Today" while most of the other tracks are very solid. My only problem with Duality is the inclusion of the cover of Sting's "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" which in my opinion adds nothing and breaks up the solid flow of the album.

Overall: 8.5/10 and highly recommended

Song Lyric of the Day
"And I've gotta move on from here
I've done all that I can do
Yeah, I've gotta move on from here
I'm just swimming upstream for you"

Ra - "Swimming Upstream"