The lead singer of the Grunge, rock band Paradox from Ireland, Pete Mac resolve to take some time off his band to pull out his solo career. He took off the closet his acoustic guitar,  some old Paradox songs like demos and b-sides and mix with his new individual music compositions. With this ingredients he cook an intimist solo album called "In Limbo", a title which shows clearly what is the album about. 

In Limbo is a latin term that means staying in the edge or boundary of Hell. Is an idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned. You can feel this definition over the calm and dark fourtheen songs that have titles for example like: "Miles Behind", "Emptiness", "No People Day", "Bury the World", "No words", "Dream", "Bring me Down". As you can imagine, living in limbo ins't  a easy thing to carry with, the life line where you walk is thin and you can fall out easily into hell if you loose your equilibrium by yourself or with simply with a light breeze. So logically its hard to find moments of happiness in this album. Better imagine something like a low light atmosphere where the normal picture is constitute by heavy, dark clouds full of rain that sometimes let pass some rare timid light rays from the sun.

In these fourtheen songs Pete Mac also shows naturally and non intentionaly where his influences came from.  You can find a similar (special) feeling originally from the third album of the australian band Silverchair "Neon Ballroom", released in 1999. But instrumentally "In Limbo" is a simple/ acoustic and direct album with some twists of electric guitar nothing more (were added). Its natural and emotionly as an intimist album should be... No artificials, no masks, simply the true! .
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I grabbed the In Limbo album from iTunes. Wow, what a fun look into the creative mind of a kindred grunge soul. And I really like the song "Kindred" by the way. The common thread across the diverse songs on the album seems to be your melodic smoothing of sharp edges (biting lyrics) by your spot-on harmonies between lead vocals, guitar chords, and backing vocals (Dream, Emptiness, Miles Behind, etc.). This quality is often an overlooked skill that so many of the great grunge artists have used over the years (Layne and Jerry, Eddie and Stone, Screaming Trees, heck, even Kurt on some of the Bruce Vig mixes).

I will enjoy listening to this along with the Sacred album.
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Originally from Ireland this trio has found fairly agreeable success in North America with self promotion and hard work. Hard and in your face with the track "Corporate Pollution" Paradox extracts the essence of the North American ways of life, capitalistic apathy. Coming from a european background these insights into our ways of life are quite refreshing and even more pressing than when heard from within. The core of Paradox's sound is driven with passion and is reminiscent of the grunge/hard rock styles prevalent in middle America. The lyrics are quite insightful and are obviously something these gentleman put a lot of their heart and soul into. "Pretend Friend", one of my favourites displays their appreciation for the musical content of a song with their use of harmonies and a meaningful topic.
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