Beautiful Tragedy is the debutstudio album by American heavy metal band In This Moment. The album was promoted largely in part by an interview conducted on Sirius Satellite Radio's Hard Attack station, which performed several songs off Beautiful Tragedy and helped expose the band to the heavy metal scene. The band's substantially heavy sound has allowed songs like the single "Prayers" and "Daddy's Falling Angel" frequent airplay on Hard Attack. However, with its strong employment of clean vocals, the title track, "Beautiful Tragedy", has also seen airplay on the Sirius hard rock station, Octane.
Release and promotion
A music video was produced for "Prayers" which had the band performing in an ancient chapel. As described in the Hard Attack interview, during the video shoot, vocalist Maria Brink violently met face-first with a camera as it was closing in on the group. After having her nose laceration superglued and made up, Brink finished singing, often keeping her hair in her face to prevent noticability of her nose. Upon release, the video for "Prayers" aired on Headbangers Ball. The second commercial release was for the title track, "Beautiful Tragedy", which was also accompanied by a music video. Brink says of the song, "I kept thinking of these funerals where there are family members who haven't talked to each other for years. And then, when they lose someone, suddenly everyone loves each other. Sometimes, something dark brings out something beautiful." The single broke into the Top 40 Active Rock charts. The success of the album led to a year of touring the US, Europe, and Japan with acts such as Within Temptation, Walls of Jericho, and Lacuna Coil. The band also scored opening slots for Megadeth, Ozzy Osbourne and Rob Zombie at the end of 2007 which increased their profile in the metal scene. An unreleased track from the Beautiful Tragedy sessions called "Surrender" was released to online digital retailers on December 2007.
Critical reception
The album received mixed to positive reviews upon release. Eduardo Rivadavia from allmusic stated "True, with the exception of Brink's anomalous female presence, In This Moment tenders nothing truly original to the state of early-2000s metal on Beautiful Tragedy; but in a genre too often marred by the misuse of volume and aggression over substance, sometimes great songs should be cause enough for celebration."
