Firstly, I have to declare an interest. I first saw The Reasoning about a year ago, and although I hadn't heard their debut album, having been a fan of Rachel Cohen's singing in Karnataka, I was keen to hear her in a new band. Suffice to say I was blown away by what I heard, and just as knocked out when I heard their debut album 'Awakening'. With ex-members of Karnataka and fellow Welsh progressive band Magenta in the ranks, you might be forgiven for expecting something generically 'prog', but The Reasoning are a much more densely layered and challenging band. Some of this material has been played live for much of the last year, and this has enabled the band to hone and fine-tune the songs, to get the arrangements just as they want them, so that it's easy to hear just how ready the band were to make the album and to produce something of which there is clearly an air of achievement and awareness within the band that they've produced something a bit special. 

Apart from the song-writing, the main thing that stands out about this band is the singing. I have already mentioned Rachel Cohen, who rumour has it auditioned for Nightwish as Tarja Turunen's replacement prior to the recruitment of Annette Olzon, and her performance here puts you at a loss to work out what she didn't have that the Finns were looking for, but guitarist Dylan Thompson and keyboard maestro Gareth Jones are also extremely good vocalists, and the band use the dynamic between the three to quite startling effect. Listen to the interplay between Jones and Rachel Cohen on the album opener and title track, where the lead switches from one to the other before they join for some fine harmonising on the chorus and then giving way to a driving guitar riff and then compare to Thompson's impassioned, cynical vocal on 'Call Me God'. But in praising the singing, you cannot overlook the excellent guitar work of Thompson and new recruit Owain Roberts, nor the tight and yet inventive rhythm section of Matt Cohen and Vinden Wylde. 

Perhaps there's nothing here quite as immediate as the title track from the debut album  but this is an album which won't give up its secrets in one listen. 'Progressive' is a term that is often used to describe bands that are ploughing the same furrow as some were in the 70s and 80s, or who have barely moved on, dare I say progressed, over a number of albums, but this is a band who in less than 18 months since their debut, have developed and refined their sound and there's no sign that they're content to take the easy option of regurgitating the elements that worked so well on their debut. 

I'm tempted, very tempted to give 'Dark Angel' a score of at least 9 out of 10, but our illustrious webmaster asks us to reserve such praise for a career-defining album, so I'll have to restrain myself. Mind you, I still wouldn't give a 9, not because this album doesn't deserve it, but because such is the talent and desire in this band, that I can easily see them surpassing this and going on to even greater things in the future. There's so much talent and desire in this band, that you can only wonder what they might achieve.