The US I:Scintilla suprised last year with the Havestar EP as a guitar oriented band that signed with the Belgian Alfa-Matrix label that mostly deals in electronic music. This Havestar EP has powerful songs with vocals of Brittany Bindrim whose voice sounds like a crossbreed between Shirley Manson of Garbage and Amy Lee of Evanescence. Some vocal parts also remind of Kristy of The Azoic. The compelling music of I:Scintilla consists of layers of synth sounds, tight drum rhythms and heavy sequences, with heavy electro beats and powerful guitars added. The music mostly has a huge amount of energy and a cool drive that invites to dancing, headbanging or randomly going nuts. The songs ‘Havestar’, ‘Scin’ and ‘The Bells’ who were already featured on the Havestar EP, are present on this Optics album as well. These are also the best tracks on Optics, added with the rock-dance crossover songs ‘Cursive-Eve’, ‘Ultravioletfly’ and ‘Machinevision’. ‘Melt’ and ‘Toy Soldier’ are more synthpop-electro focussed tunes, yet less achieved, as they miss the necessary impact that previously mentioned songs have. This also goes for the more organic rocksongs ‘Translate’ and ‘Salt of Stones’. Although not every song is a hit, and the feeling stays that more could have come of this album, Optics does sound great and I:Scintilla is firmly placed in current modern times with their power-goth music. The production has been done by Wade Alin of Christ Amalogue and he has done a pretty good job with that. Musicwise a nice band, but not a great album in the long run.