Obsession is the album of Eighteen Visionsʼ career; a turning point, a landmark, a clearly articulated punch to the face. It is clearly different from their previous four albums. This one is not as heavy and is more rock, but it still has the trademark screams of James Hart (vocals). On this album you will find flashes of the Deftones, HIM, Vision of Disorder and Stone Temple Pilots, while Eighteen Visions have completely come into their own at the same time, proving once and for all why they've always been leaders in Southern California.
"This Time" pours out the speakers like falling rain and thunder, while "Tower of Snakes" crushes with the type of refuge the band mastered on their ferocious Trustkill debut, "Until the Ink Runs Out," while alternately containing the record's most explosive chorus - "Are you running away from me/ Are you running away from you?"
Keith Barney's multi-layered guitars, particularly on tracks like the letter to an absent father called "Crushed", betray the album's outward simplicity. Hart has become a David Bowie or Scott Weiland for the new millennium, pushing his performance on "Obsession" beyond imaginary boundaries into a classy and tasteful expression of his inner-most fears, desires and all of the insecurity and arrogance that make a front man truly great. Just listen to "Bleed by Yourself."
Hart's longtime collaborative partner and band cofounder Ken Floyd knows how to a kick in the balls ballad like "I Should Tell You" while keeping the album's grooves on songs like "The Long Way Home," which is heavy as fuck. Bassist Mick Morris is locked in with Ken throughout, while adding a bottom end to Barney's flourishes that is at once innovative, multi-colored and yet totally nails the songs down.
Over years spent pursuing other projects and passions, all of the bands members have put Eighteen Visions first and foremost in their lives, and it shows. This album is all or nothing. They're ready to take on the world. The band opens up with an album length meditation on a relationship full of heartache, despair, desperation and confusion that at the same time has forged a true loyalty and strength through perseverance not unlike the band's long road to "Obsession" itself.