A quintessential 1980s pop tune, a classic metal moment and a great live performance from one of the most underrated bands ever ...
Prince, "Delirious." From the album 1999 (1982). Remember when we all thought 1999 was so far away and would never come? One of the hits from 1999, this tune has a quintessential 1980s pop synth riff, but it's still a lot of fun in 2016. It may come off as a bit cheesy today, but just a few seconds in and you'll be bobbing your head. There's no video available because it's Prince, but you know how it goes.
I'm a little late in reviewing this, but I wanted to give it some time to sink in. I bashed Dream Theater's last record on a quick review, and I ended up quite liking it. I wanted to make sure that didn't happen this time.
On "Black Clouds and Silver Linings," Dream Theater is back in full prog mode. You can tell that by the tracklist. The CD is packed about as full as it can get with music, and there are only six songs, the longest, "The Count of Tuscany," checking in at nearly 20 minutes, the shortest, "Wither," clocking about five and a half.
I apologize in advance for the length of this review, but there's so much going on that it's practically impossible to write a complete review that's brief. There are just too many twists, turns and shifts. If they wrote songs like most bands, they could get six or seven out of each of theirs.
First the good:
Album opener "A Nightmare to Remember" gets things off to a rolling start with a heavy opening that borders on extreme metal with its crunching guitars and rolling drum line until the keyboards kick in. Vocalist James LaBrie takes on a dark, cutting delivery that reminds me of Jon Oliva in places. The tune slows down about the four-minute point, but remains dark for the next few minutes. We come out at about the 7:30 mark with a bluesy, rocking, jaw-dropping solo from John Petrucci that leads to an extended bit of madness on his part. Drummer Mike Portnoy makes a vocal appearance to give a deeper sound to a thrashy bit toward the end. The record's off and rolling to a good start.
"A Rite of Passage" is one of the less adventurous tracks on the record, but also one of my favorites. It's among the shorter tunes at around eight minutes, but features some more aggressive elements in the way of vocals and guitars. It's reminiscent of their one mainstream hit, "Pull Me Under," with a catchy chorus melody.
"The Shattered Fortress" is on the gnarly side for Dream Theater, which is a good thing. It opens with a heavy riff that moves into a melody with a feel reminiscent of some of the pirate metal bands popping up lately thanks in large part to the soaring keys of Jordan Rudess. It moves back to a thrash riff about two mintues in with Portnoy providing some snarled supporting vocals for Labrie. After a soft interlude where a deep spoken word bit (Portnoy again?) trades off with Labrie's vocals and finishes strong with a rolling heavy riff that leads to more histrionics from Petrucci.
The album is capped off with the epic "The Count of Tuscany," which while a bit too long, certainly shows off the band's skills. It opens with a heavy Rush influence before moving to an "Images and Words" feel. LaBrie's vocals here are in a very classic hard rock mode, and he uses the more aggressive vocals he's worked on recenlty here as well. The slow, atmospheric interlude that kicks in around the 10-minute mark probably could have been cut drastically from its four-minute run time and helped the song. A simple, Pink Floyd-ish acoustic piece follows that leads into a majestic close.
Now for the not-so-good. The ballad "Wither" is certainly the weakest link here. It's the most straightforward song and thankfully the shortest, and really doesn't have much excitement at all. "The Best of Times," despite some strong moments, is a bit too vanilla for my tastes as well, and goes on far too long at 13 minutes.
If you pick up the three-disc limited edition of the record, you'll also get a collection of cover songs that has some real fun in store. My favorite, unsurprisingly, is their fairly faithful cover of the underrated Iron Maiden tune "To Tame a Land." The Dixie Dregs' "Odyssey" gives the a chance to really put in a musical workout with its twists and turns. They pay tribute to a big influence with a cover of King Crimson's "Larks Tongues in Aspic Pt. 2," and rock out on Rainbow's funky "Stargazer." Perhaps one of the most interesting of the cover songs is a medley of Queen tunes, "Tenement Funster," "Flick of the Wrist" and "Lily of the Valley," and it doesn't disappoint. I like the fact that they chose three lesser known Queen numbers instead of a big hit. In fact, I like that about all of the covers, and I don't think there's a bad one in the bunch. It's well worth the few extra bucks for the limited.
It goes without saying that the musicianship here is impeccable and masterful. The band members continue to boggle the mind on all levels and frustrate wannabe musicians like myself who realize that, even if they spent the next 40 years locked in a room with their instrument, they'll never be that good.
In the end, I'm glad I gave the record some time to grow on me, as my initial impression was much the same as the last record. I still think there's a little too much "show off" on "Black Clouds and Silver Linings." Don't get me wrong, what Dream Theater can do is incredibly impressive, but I think that sometimes it comes at the expense of the song. It's not a record for casual listening on the drive to work (there are songs on here that would cover the morning drive, the afternoon drive and the next morning's drive), but like most of their efforts, something that needs to be experienced in full and digested.
To tell you the truth, I’ve been just about “progged” out in recent years. I’ve reviewed stacks and stacks of predictable prog, but just when I get to the point where I groan when I pull a new one out, I find a record that renews my hope in the search. The latest from Spheric Universe Experience is that record.
Is it incredibly original and mind-boggling? Not really. But it is incredibly well-done, a collection of tight songs with the focus on the song rather than on the abilities of the musicians.
“Unreal” is full of high energy tracks, and the opener “White Willow” sets the tone with an interesting organ riff on the opening, moving to a more aggressive, almost thrash bit, and then a power-metallish chorus. While the song (and the record) is loaded with Dream Theater influence, as are most prog metal acts these days, it’s not copycat. They continue with the unusual instrumentation on “Down Memory Lane,” which opens with a sitar riff, followed by an exotic-sounding melody before the heavier bits kick in on the verse. “3rd Type” opens with a Rush-like synth line before moving into a very nice piece with some spacy keyboards and a chunky guitar riff about 35 seconds in.
There’s a break with the fourth tune, “Near Death Experience,” a haunting piano interlude with no metallic instruments at all. There’s a nice flourish at the end that leads into a heavy, solemn opening riff of “Lost Ghost.” Admitttedly, toward the middle of the record, the band begins drifting more toward the standard prog sound, but there are a few more surprises up their sleeves, like the heavy Sabbath-style riffing of the album closer “Tomorrow,” or my personal favorite track on the record “O.B.E.” It’s an instrumental that opens with some impressive guitar riffing, then shifts gears into a nice little funky piece that is fantastic. It’s sort of like a metallized version of a James Brown tune.
The band is solid and tight, with all members putting in impressive showings without being overbearing. There’s a nice balance between musicianship and songwriting. The lyrics could use a little work in places, particularly third track “Lakeside Park,” but that’s a minor criticism.
The songs are solid, the album sounds good, and Spheric Universe Experience throws just enough unusual bits into the mix to keep things interesting. It’s a good listen for those who like song-based progressive stylings.
We get it, already. Dream Theater is an incredibly talented band capable of writing and performing very technical and complex songs. Still, they feel that they have to keep proving it by writing 15-minute-plus epics that showcase their mastery of their instruments.
There's a reason that "Pull Me Under" from 1992's "Images and Words" was the band's biggest commercial success. It married the technical with the hummable, and its 8-plus minutes didn't feel like an eternity the way many of the songs on this record do. The best here are "Constant Motion," a thrashy tune with the only semblance of a hook on the album, and "Dark Eternal Night," which features one of the best grooves (and some of the worst vocals).
On the other end of the spectrum are the disco-like beat of "Prophets of War" and the elevator music ballad "Repentance," which will likely have listeners snoozing by the halfway point. In between, you'll find "Forsaken," in which a lifeless verse steals the power of its opening guitar riff, and "In the Presence of Enemies Part II," which has a great seven-minute song buried about six minutes into its 16-minute running time.
I'll admit that perhaps I'm no longer in the core audience for a band like Dream Theater as I was in the 1990s. I have drifted farther and farther away from prog as I've gotten older, and while there are some great moments scattered throughout the record, I find the majority of the songs on this album incredibly boring.
Ultimately, to me, it seems like a lot of "look what we can do," and very little real songwriting. True, you don't want a band like Dream Theater doing standard verse-chorus-verse constructions or playing to the lowest common denominator, but a hook every now and then wouldn't hurt anything, either.
Since I have to come up with Top 10 lists for several outlets at the end of the year, I keep a running list of candidates. I hear so many records during the year that, in December, I often forget albums that I really liked in January. In the first month of this year, I've been fortunate enough to add two records to the list of potential candidates, the latest from Seven Witches and this album.
I went into the debut from Degree Absolute expecting a pretty standard collection of wannabe Dream Theater songs. Guess you shouldn't judge an album by its cover and the fact that some of the members graduated from Berklee.
What makes this album a breath of fresh air in the progressive metal genre is its noted lack of overpowering keyboard lines. I didn't know that was even possible these days, but you'd be hard-pressed to find any keyboard at all on this offering. Certainly, Degree Absolute does fall into a little Dream Theater worship here and there, but what progressive album hasn't since Images and Words was released?
The fact is that there's just as much thrash and jazz as progressive in the band's sound, and they get a nice mix of fast and aggressive, slow and melodic and some very cool jazzy interludes. There are even some odes to classic metal, like the Iron Maiden-meets-Rush breakdown on the opening track "Exist."
Formed in 1999 by singer/guitarist Aaron Bell, the band was an attempt to marry the sounds of Watchtower and Fates Warning. With more than six years between the formation and their debut album, you can still hear that inspiration. There's plenty of both bands in this album, but the result is music that sounds like neither band.
Bell's guitar riffs are tight and catchy, and he and drummer Doug Beary create some dynamic heavy moments. The slower songs, while given some cool, spacy guitar pieces, tend to rely more on Bell's voice, which is a fairly standard prog voice. It's not bad, but doesn't blow you away, either. Still, even a ballad like "Confessions" is lifted well above the mundane by some
great musicianship and smooth guitar work.
The only weakness on this record is really when the band turns to more ambient pieces, like "Half-Man, Half-Biscuit." It may be a great example of the ambient genre, but to be honest I just don't get it. To me, it sounds like a bunch of white noise with the occasional guitar riff, and I'd much rather hear some incredible riffs and runs, as on "Pi," which is a beautiful mix of the jazzy and heavy. There's also the untitled six and a half minutes at the end of the record that's completely white noise, which I find a bit annoying. Give me another song or just end the record.
Putting those two pieces aside, 47 of the 57 minutes on this album are incredible and should excite any fan of great musicianship.
Surprisingly, the first thing you notice about the latest solo album from Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie is not the vocals. In fact, it's the huge guitar riffs of Marco Sfogli.
While the album is LaBrie's opportunity to pursue some things that wouldn't fly in the Dream Theater setting, it's Sfogli who steals the show with chunky riffs that are the stitching for this progressive metal Frankenstein. For a guy who, on his Web site, claims to be influenced by Toto, the Police and (unfortunately I’m not kidding) Winger, Sfogli lays down some pretty solid heavy licks.
As is often the case with solo albums, "Elements of Persuasion" doesn't fall too far from the Dream Theater tree. In general, it's a bit heavier with a bit less emphasis on the prog elements. Think about the heavier parts of a song like "Pull Me Under," and you've got a pretty good idea of the tone of the album. While not exactly Dream Theater-style songs, numbers like the chugging "Freaks" and "Undecided" certainly wouldn't turn anyone's head if they showed up on a Dream Theater album.
But LaBrie has a few tricks up his sleeve, starting with the opening tracks of the album. "Crucify" gets things going with a blast of classic Metallica-style thrash. It’s a good song, though LaBrie’s voice isn’t ideally suited to the style. On the second song, “Alone,” LaBrie veers into a techno-metal romp that, despite the use of drum machines and turntables, will still appeal to fans of Dream Theater’s style of prog metal.
The band even strays from the rock path completely on the fusion-inspired "Lost," which shows off the rhythm section of Mike Mangini and Bryan Beller.
It’s when things slow down that the album falters. Ballads like “Smashed” and “Slightly Out of Reach” drift a little too far into commercial waters for my tastes, with the latter sounding almost like it could come from a Winger album (with better vocals, of course). The slower songs suffer from a serious lack of the album’s strongest element — Sfogli's guitar. Better to skip them and blast “Oblivious” or “Invisible” as loud as the stereo will crank.
What LaBrie does well on this album is tap into the pure rock elements of his main band while scaling back on the artsy parts. He leaves just enough of the progressive sound to please Dream Theater fans, but also opens the door for listeners who are fans of traditional metal. This is an impressive solo effort for LaBrie, who shows that he’s capable of breaking out of his regular band. But when all is said and done, it's Sfogli that you’ll really want to hear more from.
