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Dream Theater: Black Clouds & Silver Linings (2009)

(Roadrunner Records)

1. “A Nightmare to Remember” – 16:11
2. “A Rite of Passage” – 8:36
3. “Wither” – 5:26
4. “The Shattered Fortress” – 12:49
5. “The Best of Times” – 13:09
6. “The Count of Tuscany” – 19:16

So Dream Theater’s latest album finally came out. After the horrible letdown that was Systematic Chaos, I couldn’t wait to see how hard they’d fail on their next attempt. I remembered eagerly waiting for Systematic Chaos’s release way back when, only to be horribly, horribly let down. It almost felt like Dream Theater had trolled me. It was a kind of disappointment that I simply couldn’t handle again. As a result, I listened to this new one expecting to be disappointed. Let me talk about this for a bit…

Dream Theater is a Progressive Metal band. They feature some of the most talented musicians on the planet: John Petrucci on guitar, John Myung on bass, Jordan Rudess on keyboards (and sometimes lap steel guitar), and Mike Portnoy on drums. It’s like a dream team, the likes of which you only see on all-star lineups that usually only release a cover song or something and then never work with each other again. Fortunately for us, Dream Theater has been together for more than twenty five years now and we have just now been blessed with their eleventh offering.

However, Dream Theater, since the release of Scenes from a Memory (1999), had noticeably been heading away from the “progressive” and more into the “metal”. They got heavier and heavier with each passing album with odd detours in one direction or another with each one. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002) was a heavier rather experimental album considering its direct predecessor that never liked to stay in one place. They then took a nose-dive into the Thrashy end of the metal pool with Train of Thought (2003). Octavarium (2005) went back in the more Alternative direction with a lot of influence from the likes of Muse and a lot of very standard and relatively unimaginative song structures. Systematic Chaos (2007) sort of mixed Train and Octavarium together, featuring both more accessible sounds (“Prophets of War”, “Forsaken”) as well as the heavy metal explored in Train (“Constant Motion”, “The Dark Eternal Night”).

To be honest, despite being a metalhead, I was fearing for Dream Theater. Their trend towards getting heavier and heavier was wearing me thin. In addition, they didn’t seem to understand that LaBrie’s voice was getting progressively worse and that he cannot pull off the James Hetfieldesque raspy thrash voice they so desperately want him to be able to. LaBrie’s last great performance on an album was Scenes From a Memory. His last decent one was Six Degrees. Since then, DT fans have been polarized into those in denial who cannot accept that DT has a weak link and declares LaBrie still a wonderful vocalist and those who have simply learned to tolerate him.

Like any other fan, I was anticipating DT’s newest release eagerly. However, I also expected them to fail and was even making predictions as to exactly how DT would fail this time around. The time finally came. I put on my headphones and hit play.

The first listen through blew me away. Let me be straight. This is, in my opinion, Dream Theater’s strongest release since Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. It’s as if they took every mistake they made between then and now and actually learned from them. This is a great album. Every song feels complete and whole and each is unique and stands out on its own. The songs are all epic ballads with complete concepts in and of themselves.

One of the things I love the most about bands like Dream Theater is that they absolutely refuse to put a filler song on an album. For this reason, I’ll briefly take a closer look at each song.

The album opens with the sixteen-minute epic, “A Nightmare to Remember”. It is apparently about a car crash John Petrucci experienced. The song chronicles it in dramatic exaggeration. It is, for the most part, a heavier and darker song with a lot of blast beats and fast solos. There is one part, however, where Portnoy does this cute little rap that nearly destroys the song. Barring that, however, it’s a great and energetic opener that, in trademark Dream Theater style, takes you on a journey.

The second song is the shorter, “A Rite of Passage”. In my opinion, this is the weakest song on the album that is half the length of the first track and is half as enjoyable. If you don’t listen closely, the song passes by in relative monotony and doesn’t really feel like it goes anywhere…but at eight minutes, a song like this HAS to do something with itself. It’s still not bad, but is disappointing compared to the punch in the face that “Nightmare” was.

We then move on to “Wither”. This is, thankfully, a good song. It has a very alternative rock sound and even a very alternative rock length. While it’s short for a Dream Theater song, it is short because it needs to be. It does not overstay its welcome. Lyrically, it apparently talks about the frustrations of writers block, and is the strongest on the album in that regard, in my opinion. This song is a good and relatively soft intermission, so to speak, on the album.

The final song in Portnoy’s Twelve Step/alcoholism series is, “The Shattered Fortress”. This is the most fun song on the album solely because we finally get to see the series end. It has been years and years, and it has finally been concluded. It is a lot of fun and very nostalgic to hear melodies and riffs from all the previous songs play out together seamlessly in this one.

Next up, we have the melancholic yet light-hearted, “The Best of Times”. Written in honor of Portnoy’s father, who had been battling cancer and unfortunately passed away during the making of Black Clouds & Silver Linings, this song on the surface feels very light and happy. However, the melancholy written into the notes and lyrics makes itself evident. It is another longer song, clocking in at thirteen minutes, but most of that comes from the very long acoustic instrumental intro at the beginning.

The finisher on the album is definitely one of the strongest songs Dream Theater has ever released. “The Count of Tuscany” is an amazing nineteen-minute epic, telling the story of an encounter Petrucci had with an eccentric man while in Tuscany. The lyrics are equally quirky and entertaining. This song is a true journey in and of itself. The song is broken into four sections. The first and third are instrumental sections, the first reminiscent of “Hell’s Kitchen” from Falling into Infinity, and the second being a Rudess-centered one like the intro to “Octavarium” off of the album of the same name. The second and third sections are the parts with lyrics that tell the story. This is such a great song, I don’t know how I can do it justice in a single paragraph…it deserves a review on its own. Give it a listen, and you’ll know what I mean.

One of the things I enjoyed the most about this album was the amount of noticeable growth in Petrucci’s guitar playing. He has clearly gotten better and cleaner between Systematic Chaos and now, and it really shows. While his solos were less diverse than they have been in the past few albums, they are all still very enjoyable. His tones, however, are nothing but impressive on this album. I absolutely loved them all, and was taken aback by the amount of impact they had.

Portnoy’s drumming also matured a bit. It’s less showy than it was on Octavarium and Systematic Chaos. It’s a breath of fresh air, really, and makes the album feel a bit more balanced. Normally, I complain about drumming in metal having too little character and being too predictable. I can complain about the opposite only with a drummer of Portnoy’s caliber, who is unmatched in the world.

Myung is…Myung. His bass had its peak on “Metropolis” with his one solo and since then has stayed pretty much the same. This album is no different, though we do see more parts where the bass plays a melody independent from the guitar.

Rudess’s tones improve with every album, and this one is no exception. The tones he uses on solos on this album are particularly remarkable. The solos themselves are, as always, in trademark manic and abstract Rudess style, and they are fun as they always are. Everyone talks shit when a guitarist spews out too many notes, but never when a keyboardist does. Rudess knows that and abuses the hell out of that double standard.

LaBrie’s vocals have improved slightly from Systematic Chaos (where he was abysmal), but is nowhere near Octavarium’s level, while Images/Scenes/Six Degrees feel like a distant dream from another life.

I’ve said it already, but I’ll say it again. This is one of Dream Theater’s best albums. It’s difficult to rank them in any linear order, but it’s definitely up there with Scenes and Six Degrees. It is an epic album full of ballads. It maintains the heavier tendency DT has leaned towards since Six Degrees, but brings back the progressive all DT fans have been missing. I am so glad this album turned out this way, and so will you, if you haven’t listened to it already. Go pick it up right now.

This is an extraordinarily long review, I realize, and I apologize…but there’s just too much to say about this wonderful album.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant rating:

***** 5/5 Stars.

Cynic: Traced in Air (2008)

1. “Nunc Fluens” – 2:56
2. “The Space for This” – 5:46
3. “Evolutionary Sleeper” – 3:35
4. “Integral Birth” – 3:53
5. “The Unknown Guest” – 4:13
6. “Adam’s Murmur” – 3:29
7. “King of Those Who Know” – 6:09
8. “Nunc Stans” – 4:13

Now I’ve stated somewhere around this blog before that my tastes are most firmly rooted in metal and progressive music. I love metal music; I love progressive music. What I love even more is progressive metal music done well. That is why whenever you see me listing my top favorite bands, Opeth and Dream Theater are usually in my top two, and the likes of Meshuggah and Tool in my top 5. I have a strange affinity for heavy, dark and epic music. You get heavy in metal, dark in most metal and some progressive, and lots of epic in progressive and some metal. In addition, in metal you get lots of intricate and technical musicianship, as well as a raw intensity you just don’t really find in other genres. In progressive music (nowadays), you get even more technical (albeit not necessarily intricate) musicianship, innovation, and a sense of discovery and wonder built into the arrangements and composition.

Despite my being in utter love with progressive metal, I gave up on finding too much music in the area. There’s good metal, there’s good progressive, but nine out of ten progressive metal bands are complete shit. They plug the progressive tag into their music by adding in some keyboards, half-assed “orchestra” or “classical” arrangements, lots of fast-played scales, dissonant chords, clean vocals, and seven to eight minute songs. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t cut it.

Progressive is a pretentious term intrinsically; there’s no escaping that, I suppose. But if you’re going to label your music with a pretentious tag, at least be able to back that up. You need to write music that makes sense. It doesn’t need to be technical–it needs to be smart. It needs to be mature. It needs to instill that feeling that you’re listening to something interesting and fresh (without needing to actually be fresh). Experiment, be daring and adventurous in your music, for god’s sake. When you start writing and playing technical music for technicality’s sake, you get today’s Yngwie Malsteem, and we all know how that turned out (in case you don’t know, he’s washed up now; even Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth agrees with me: Read his blog on Yngwie Malsteem).

This is where Cynic comes in. I went on a spree recently, getting all sorts of new music; mostly doom, death/doom, and some old progressive and progressive metal music. I was suggested Cynic as well when I was searching through progressive metal stuffs. I had heard of them when they supported Meshuggah on one of their past tours, and being from the Tampa Bay, Florida area, I had previously brushed them off as another run of the mill death metal band. This time I took them a bit more seriously and actually took a good listen to one of their albums.

Let me sum up the impression this album left on me after I’d finished listening through it in as few words as I can: “Holy fucking shit”. Now let me elaborate. This is an absolutely amazing album. It is one of the best metal albums I have ever heard. It is fun to listen to, it is refreshing, and it is unpredictable. Most impressive is the way the entire album comes together. Throughout your listen, nothing ever feels out of place, and the concept is delivered flawlessly. I’m not the biggest fan of innovation/new things. I prefer a solid and well-written album to one that goes out of its way to be “new” and “innovative”.

Traced in Air, however, innovates and tries new things without messing it up. It is an absolute wonder of an album. From the get go, you’re drawn in with a fast intro track that builds up tension with each passage. By the end, you’re on the edge of your seat before it abruptly tapers off and leads into the next track. From there, you’re on a journey. It pulls you through measure after measure of fast paced and heavy melodies. It is heavy in its intensity, not its speed or its tone. The musicianship is perfect. Cynic does not add in extra notes where they’re not needed. The guitars are intricate and balanced (Paul Masvidal, Tymon Kruidenier). You can actually hear the bass (Robin Zielhorst, Sean Malone). The drum work is perfectly fitting yet has a manic personality of its own (Sean Reinert). Traced in Air grabs a hold of you and doesn’t let you go until you reach the end.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this album is the vocal work. It predominantly uses clean vocals fed through a synthesizer of some kind. It gives the vocalist (Paul Masvidal) a robotic and sort of inhuman feel. While generally when the vocals do appear, they still hold the leading melody, this effect really brings the instruments to the forefront. The vocals become another instrument in the band that only happens to narrate, and you are more easily able to focus on the music as a whole.

The perhaps weakest part of the album are the death growls added in now and then to back up the clean vocals. They simply are not that strong. Handled by guitarist Tymon Kruidenier, they lack any real impact or punch. However, they appear very sparsely on the album, and they never have a leading role, so I suppose it is forgivable.

In any case, Traced in Air is an absolute treat for the fan of progressive music, metal music, and progressive metal music. I absolutely did not expect to find a band of this quality ever in my lifetime; especially one that goes in such an unexpected direction such as this. I cannot recommend this album enough. It is beautiful, it is engaging, it is absolutely engrossing.

Cynic produces a sound not easily described in detail, but can be easily summarized in the album’s title. It has an esoteric and transcendental feel to it. The songs flow seamlessly from one to the next, taking you with them to some place unknown, but somewhere you know you want to be. The songs truly do feel like they were Traced in Air.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant rating:

***** 5/5 Stars.

Arch Enemy: Rise of the Tyrant (2007)

1. “Blood on Your Hands” – 4:41
2. “The Last Enemy” – 4:15
3. “I Will Live Again” – 3:32
4. “In This Shallow Grave” – 4:54
5. “Revolution Begins” – 4:11
6. “Rise of the Tyrant” – 4:33
7. “The Day You Died” –4:52
8. “Intermezzo Liberté” – 2:51
9. “Night Falls Fast” – 3:18
10. “The Great Darkness” – 4:46
11. “Vultures” – 6:35
12. “The Oath” (Kiss cover) – 4:16 (Japan Bonus Track)

This is a full two years late, I know, but for some reason, I never got around to listening to Arch Enemy’s seventh and latest offering, Rise of the Tyrant. Arch Enemy are an interesting Melodic Death metal band; they aren’t a traditional melo-death band in the same vein as old In Flames, Dark Tranquility or At the Gates. They are one of the many bands lumped into the rather large and varied Melodic Death metal genre. They were always known for their very aggressive and thrash-influenced music, but what caught my eye from the beginning was first, the maturity in their songwriting (most thrash-influenced melo-death is complete crap), and second, the thing they are perhaps most known for: their eyebrow-raising technicality.

Arch Enemy is not such a showy band as the likes of Necrophagist or John Petrucci, they aren’t as fast as Cryptopsy or Nile, and they aren’t as experimental as the likes of Meshuggah. They are, however, fun. They are lots and lots of fun. Their technicality lies in their intricate dual guitar work. They write catchy and interesting riffs and melodies that abuse that playing style to hell and back. However, despite that, the music is never uninteresting and has kept my attention since I first saw them live at Ozzfest 2005.

Rise of the Tyrant is a much more melodic album than I can remember of any of Arch Enemy’s previous albums. The songs are all rather formulaic and somewhat predictable, but that is part of the charm of this album, in my opinion. Now I love innovation, progression and weird experimental shit as much as anyone else, but that does not mean music needs to incorporate those things in order to be good. A band can release something done before and still be held in high regard, in my opinion, as long as they meet two requirements: first, they can’t have just bluntly and crassly ripped it off; the music must have its own charm, and second, they must do it well.

Rise of the Tyrant does what has been done before with the trademark Arch Enemy aggression and lyrical/aesthetic themes. They also do it very, very, very well.

The songs on this album go back and forth between heavy thrash-influenced, aggressive riffs and epic sounding melodic lines. This doesn’t sound very original, does it? Well, it really isn’t. As I said before, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before, even by Arch Enemy themselves. However, what really catches the ear is how tight everything feels. The melodic sections really bring together the aggression and anger you feel from the (relatively) amelodic parts and show you what the song is saying, what it’s doing. It isn’t just heavy heavy, then catchy melodic; there’s a sense in which the two contrasting types really work together to bring forth the lyrical and thematic concept of the song.

This may all sound rather dumb, overly artsy, and pretentious, but keep that in mind while listening to the songs, and you’ll be able to see what I mean. The sense of balance in the songs is something that makes them listenable many times over.

I think this is perhaps Arch Enemy’s strongest offering by far. The guitar work is very tight, the drums stick out a bit more than they did before (they were boring as hell in previous albums, I thought), you can actually hear the bass on this release, and the vocals, as per usual, bring shame to men. I highly recommend this album to anyone who likes fun music to get pumped with. It isn’t the best release ever, it isn’t the most thought-provoking or the most innovative release ever, but it shines in its own right by virtue of its familiarity. We (fans of metal) at one point or another loved this kind of sound, and Arch Enemy brought it back with full force like a brick to the face. Let the Revolution Begin.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant rating:

**** 4/5 Stars.

Andy McKee: Art of Motion (2005)

CANdYRAT records

1. “Art of Motion” – 3:25
2. “When She Cries” – 3:35
3. “Drifting” – 3:11
4. “For My Father” – 3:55
5. “Practice is Perfect” – 2:59
6. “Shanghai” – 4:14
7. “Into the Ocean” – 3:52
8. “Nocturne” – 3:13
9. “Heather’s Song” – 3:24
10. “Samus’ Stardrive” – 2:41
11. “Keys to the Hovercar” – 3:48
12. “Rylynn” – 5:13

I wanna just start this off by saying that Andy McKee sucks at life! (Mainly because he’s a Obama supporter…heh) Now, with all trolling being said, this is a great CD, complete with enough fingerstyle technique to shoot fireworks out of your computer speakers and lightning from your body’s orifices.

Andy McKee isn’t your ordinary fingerstyle guitarist. Besides citing influences such as Michael Hedges and Tommy Emmanuel, he lists Iron Maiden, Bjork and Dream Theater as some of his favorites, and it does show through the poppy nuances, the subtle use of heavy power-chording (see “Drifting” for an example), and the very progressive-esque flow of ideas his songs generate. But with all these good aspects being analyzed, I want to provide a rebuttal against myself, because no article is perfect without a healthy dose of obnoxiousness (see: The O’ Reilly Factor).

In the academic guitar world, fingerstyle steel-string guitarists generally are known as hokey, mainly because they doodle around until they find something that sounds nice and overly-cheesy, paying no particular heed to the idealized aspects of contrapuntal harmony. Let’s face it, we all gotta get paid, son. Now I’m not going to claim that all of the material on this CD was found this way, as I feel that a lot of emotion can be found in his playing, but I know for a fact that he doesn’t always have a meaning behind his songs; one example of this would be Heather’s Song, which he stated that he just wrote it randomly, and later just named it because his sister, Heather, randomly asked him to name it after her. I want to make it clear that this does NOT discount his ability as a musician/guitarist/composer. The guy’s great; I’ve already learned and have performed some of his material (which should show that I respect Andy a great deal), and I really envy the guy’s tone, dynamic/timbre control, and overall finesse about his instrument. I just want to discuss issues at hand that peeve the crap out of me regarding the purpose of composed music (I personally feel that this is even more true for his latest CD, Gates of Gnomeria. Maybe it’s an acquired taste, (it’s a great cd) but I feel like it’s harder to receive anything substantial when I listen to that cd). I do feel that most of the music on this CD sounds true to what it was made for— this feels especially true of several songs like Rylynn or Samus Stardrive. Music is supposed to convey a story, deliver a meaning, something! Don’t make an album with 15 tracks where 4 of the tracks are filler; make an 11 track album, and don’t make music that’s useless— Fergie does that crap enough as it is.

I feel similarly inclined with the purpose of a lot of contemporary jazz standards that are written without the thought of a meaning behind the song. This is mostly in relationship to songs written by jazzers without a substantial inspiration and meaning, or lyrics to serve a meaning on a silver platter for the audience. A lot of jazz tunes were definitely written for the sole purpose of soloing (e.g.: think “Blue Trane”), as songwriters wanted a quick and painless head (main melody) just so that they can get to the soloing quickly. If you didn’t know this and consider yourself a jazz aficionado, take a jazz appreciation class, please.

Personally, I would think it would be hard to address this topic since I didn’t specify any particular musicians or songs—I just want to provide food for thought. Ingest this and provide your thoughts on the matter; my inclination does not affect my affinity for the music, as I still enjoy a good melody line, a good showcase of musicality or technique, or a good solo. Again, I just wanted to bring something I’ve thought about for a while to light.

Just to stem possible flamers from saying stupid arguments such as “Why don’t you write a better cd?” or something to that degree, I wanna state that: (1) I definitely admit that the guy is an amazingly technically proficient player, to the degree that I could only hope to get that far, (2) I never interviewed the guy, so my article is based on whatever information I could get on this guy, as well as just listening intently to his CD, and (3) why don’t you attack the premise and not the philosopher? Prove me wrong, don’t mudsling–politicians (*cough* Obama †) do it enough as it already is.

† Check up on the “Bush-McCain foreign policy.” I’m not a hardcore McCain follower, I don’t even care much for the McCain, but Obama’s statements are ridiculous. lol whatever.

So anyway, enough of my BS, I’ll start reviewing like I’m supposed to do (otherwise Stephen will probably have a fit). For your benefit, I’m going to add a YouTube video of each song I can possibly put, since Andy’s done one for almost all the tunes on this CD.

The album starts off with an amazingly hip tune called “Art of Motion.” This tune is probably one of my favorite pieces in the album. Now, this is a piece that definitely provides a staunch contrast to what I was stating in my little prologue. Let me provide Andy’s own words, written on the album booklet, regarding this fine piece:

“A song about energy and movement. I was having a hard time coming up with a name (as I often do) until an audience member offered the name of her ballet school … Perfect!”

Now, although I find this whole situation pretentious (including myself), I want to state that this song has soul. There’s something about the contrapuntal melodies and harmonies and inner voices and rhythms that can catch a person off guard, forcing one to bob his head back and forth like a down-syndrome-maligned fowl (if this even exists), regardless of music education. If you don’t have time to listen to the full CD, this better be one of the tracks you listen to (and it’s track 1, I mean, c’mon!).

The next tune on the list is “When She Cries.” Personally, I enjoy the song’s theme, as it is a fulfilling statement in relationship to the title. Also, I really enjoy how proficient he is at using his left hand as a capo and tapping with his right hand; his right hand technique is so precise and powerful that his tone/timbre doesn’t make a significant change. What I do want to say is that I personally feel that his tremolo bridge section is a bit out of place stylistically with the rest of the song. This is where that “progressive” stream-of-consciousness composing can sometimes irk me; if I was to analyze it like that, I would compare this consciousness to a person with attention-deficit disorder. I’ve seen something similar by world-class steel-string virtuoso Michael Chapdelaine, in his instrumental rendition of Extreme’s “More Than Words”, and even then, his facial expression clearly brought out that it was a sort of musical jest. Here’s a video of that by the way:

Oh well. I give up. Going forward…

“Drifting.” Considerably speaking, this song is the main reason why anyone knows Andy McKee. Achieving over 14,000,000 hits on YouTube alone, it was the top music video on YouTube for a considerable amount of time, and is still among the highest ever rated. I don’t really need to say this, but it’s a badass work-of-art. Inspired by the great Dr. Preston Reed, his technique is very to-the-style, having his left hand play on top of the fingerboard. Just watch the damn video.

Coming fourth on the tracklist is the song “For My Father.” A simpler tune than the rest, I can really feel some laidback but strong emotion in this piece. Through his use of slight swing like a normal country/folk tune, and a low dynamic contrast, it develops into a sonic portrait Andy paints of an old-fashioned, but noble individual. He tends to stay in a pentatonic tonality, sometimes branching out to hit the rest of the major tones from time to time. This becomes a tool in helping keep the emotion from being overbearingly sad or happy, but rather in a sort of limbo. Be intent when listening to this one and try to receive something positive from it.

The next piece is…well it’s not important enough obviously to get a YouTube video. Don’t even worry about it.

J/k. “Practice is Perfect” is an alright piece. I feel of it more or less like a doodle. But I guess that was intentional? -_-;;. The tune right after it seems similar in design; it’s called “Shanghai,” and one would think it has something to do with China, but it sounds so contemporary American.

“On the last day of my tour in China, I was sitting in my hotel room in Shanghai and this tune pretty much jumped right out of the guitar with little effort on my part. Shanghai is a beautiful, modern town with some amazing architecture and wonderful sights, but I couldn’t help but start to feel a bit homesick.” – Andy McKee on Shanghai (found in the cd booklet)

I just can’t help but feel that such a song lacks substance. In fact, bits and pieces remind me of this bluegrass rendition of “The Saga of Harrison Crabfeathers” by Steve Kuhn wrote, that Chris Thile of Nickel Creek and Mike Marshall performed. HUH. Stylistically speaking, it had nothing to do with China. For one thing, Chinese music makes use of stringed zithers (of all sizes), which make use of lots of quick bending and vibrato, but not much sliding as all as it consists of a movable bridge per string. I’m probably going waaaaaaay too far in left field with this, but my OCD’s kicking in, saying why couldn’t it be named more aptly? Like “Feeling Homesick,” “Thoughts of Home from Shanghai,” or my personal favorite, “Unilaterally Random Doodle Drawn Out Ubiquitously in a Chinese Hotel Room.”

That wouldn’t be artistic though, huh? Whatever.

And after two whatevers, here’s a solid tune. Into the Ocean’s a tune played on a harp guitar, and I love the tone and ambience harp guitars deliver for the same reason why I love multi-stringed guitars (guitars with 7+ strings) — because it provides a new world of resonance and overtones to help you relax your stress away (unless you’re Korn, then you abuse the 7-string electric, a beautiful instrument made possible by Steve Vai, by playing the mostly-absurd numetal). Andy does a great job of accompanying himself with the powerful lower-end of the harp guitar’s bass strings, using droning pedal tones (a musical device he actually frequents in his other songs, just only this is harp guitar…lol =P ) as well as complementing, flowing thematic statements to create a subsequently flowing ambience. Thank you Andy =].

I’m purposely skipping the next two tracks, for reasons you can probably make educated guesses. Great technique and talent though. :shrugs:

The next two songs I’m gonna review as one, mainly because I feel as if “Samus Stardrive” and “Keys to the Hovercar” are sister songs, in that they give the essence of thematic music. I feel like I’m watching a movie, especially with Samus Stardrive. OH MAN. In this song, Andy starts off the piece with a thematic idea using a flurry of harmonics. I swear I feel like I’m whizzing by stars in space right next to Samus. (Of course, being a mutual fanboy of the Metroid series, it’s definitely Zero-Suit Samus. Wait, huh? ) ANYWAY, “Keys to the Hovercar” has something similar, in the use of these heavy, snapped low notes that give me a similar feeling of weightlessness. The rhythm is held in the pocket, something to be expected of someone capable of placing extremely high in the Fingerstyle Guitar Competition of the Canadian Guitar Festival. Guy has leet hax I swear.

“Rylynn.” Before anything else, I want to say that I love this song. I’ve performed this song at gigs, including my end-of-the-semester classical guitar recital— I even made a quirk out of it by sometimes involving another guitarist playing the end artificial harmonic accompaniment on the same guitar as mine. It’s a cool gimmick— it really gets people excited— and I got the picture to prove it (which is btw courtesy of our very own Stephen Kim):

(The guitarist above me is Adrian Gomez, quite a talented player btw)

Rylynn is definitely a song of the ages. Andy composed this song in loving memory of Rylynn Coffman, and if you listen to this song, you will truly experience a weakening of the knees. The song accentuates a tone of mixed feelings, of love and sorrow from the tumultuous events surrounding the death of a loved one (I’m inferring from the bridge portion), to the peace she must have felt (incurred during the outro), leaving our world and going on to a better place. I can definitely admit that it is this song that enchained and solidified my respect for Mr. Andy McKee.

A fine guitarist and individual, I’m sure he’ll do many great things with his music. Sure there were things I could pick out, but that was probably my OCD, cynically argumentative nature talking. For your sake and ours, let’s hope Andy makes a hundred more cds like this one, because this one’s a keeper.

Derek’s mostly biased but highly-acclaimed rating of holiness:

€€€ ☺☺☺☺☺ 5/5 Gingerbread Men.€€€

Zero Hour: Dark Deceiver (2008)

Sensory Records

1. Power to Believe – 7:07
2. Dark Deceiver – 3:56
3. Inner Spirit – 12:19
4. Resurrection – 3:18
5. Tendonitis – 1:19
6. The Temple Within – 6:13
7. Lies – 3:20
8. The Passion Of Words – 4:32
9. Severed Angel – 2:37

Zero Hour’s Dark Deceiver is existing and tangible proof that you don’t need to be intelligent in order to call yourself Progressive. The band’s fifth offering, they cannot claim being young and relatively inexperienced as an excuse. The album feels like one huge mess of Power Metal riffage and the like. The songs are relatively indistinguishable from each other, save the track, “Tendonitis”. Despite that, I still find myself crawling back to it. Perhaps it’s my inner fanboy for all things epic, aggressive and just plain Metal, but either way, it somehow manages to stay in my playlist.

I heard of this band through a blog on Dream Theater’s MySpace. They were talking about how they were to be a performer at some San Francisco Prog festival. After a very quick listen on the band’s MySpace, I decided this album might be worth acquiring. The first impression you get is of unorthodox songwriting, freeform song structures, fast playing, and power metal vocals. You will be impressed before the album sort of sinks in, and you realize exactly what it is.

Every song sort of sounds like the other. You have very strong and crispy distorted guitars repeating a very heavy and aggressive riff backed by the most annoying, pretentious and ostentatious bass in the history of music. Every now and then, the two guitars and bass break into a three way polymelody that derails every song from any kind of logical melodic development, then goes back into another heavy riff, then suddenly drops in dynamic to something soft and melodic to build the song back up.

Now…none of that is bad, per say, but when it’s executed as poorly as it is on this album, there is an obvious problem. The songwriting is not bad; all of the riffs and melodies are catchy, heavy, what have you. The problem is that the way they’re pasted together exudes a lack of cohesion, flow and logical development. Sure, it’s “Progressive”, so it shouldn’t follow orthodox styles or tradition, but there’s a limit before you become another band that tries to be.

I think the entire album could have been saved despite it’s too oddball songwriting if it weren’t for the bassist, Troy Tipton. I have no idea who he is, and I’ve never heard of him before. Despite that, he plays shit on this album like he’s the Yngwie Malsteem of bass and he’s got to prove it. His bass parts have too many notes, and is often simply too fast and too technical for it to fit into the song. Bass is bass. Bass is rhythm. Bass is backing. Especially in a twin guitar band, the bass should not have a lead of it’s own. Then again, maybe it could, and I bet with some decent songwriting, someone could pull it off exceedingly well and completely flip what I just wrote on its ass. Zero Hour, however, does not pull it off.

This comes to a head in the track, “Tendonitis”. It is a 2:19 second solo that begins and ends with an annoying little six-year-old kid being pretentious for Tipton. It is two minutes of pointless bass “shred”. It serves no purpose on the album, except maybe as some kind of a intermission from the relative monotony that is the rest of the album.

The vocal work is pretty decent. The guy has a great power metal voice with a great range. Sometimes, the vocal melody seems a bit counter-intuitive, but I suppose it would have to be when the instruments are written as a-melodically as they often are on this album. It is plainly obvious that the music for the instruments were written before the vocal parts. This is not necessarily a bad thing…but sometimes, the vocals feel like they were thrown in for the sake of having vocals.

The only really notable songs that stuck out to me were the ones that had passages where the bass was somewhat toned down, and the song was allowed more melody and some rational development. “Dark Deceiver”, “Inner Spirit”, “Resurrection” and “Temple Within” are those that were written with some sense, even if they had rather shaky starts.

Now, don’t get me wrong; the musicians on this album have to be more than capable in order to be able to play these songs. However, I am simply saying that they go over the top to the point where my cynicism drives in, and I enjoy these songs much less than I’m sure they meant for me to.

Again, the songs can be fun. Many of the riffs are catchy, and most of the songs develop into better songs farther into the track than at the start. It is decent Progressive Power Metal, I suppose. There is better out there, but if you’re like me, and like to have a wide variety of music of any genre you’re into, and are looking to expand your catalog for the sake of having a bigger catalog, then sure, pick this one up.

It is not a great album. However, it is also not a bad album. I hesitate to call it good, but then again, I suppose there’s a limit to how much I can judge.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant Rating:

*** 2/5 Stars.

Opeth: Watershed (2008)

Roadrunner Records

1. “Coil” – 3:10
2. “Heir Apparent” – 8:50
3. “The Lotus Eater” – 8:50
4. “Burden” – 7:41
5. “Porcelain Heart” (Åkerfeldt, Åkesson) – 8:00
6. “Hessian Peel” – 11:25
7. “Hex Omega” – 7:00

I cannot lie. I am a huge Opeth fan. In fact, I would go so far as to say they are among my very top favorite bands of all time. And so I write and put up this review the very day their latest offering comes out in the US.

Opeth is quite unlike any other band out there, I think. I would classify them under Progressive Metal (if genre classification counts for anything), but they are not like most bands that would get grouped together with them. They are known for their rather maximalist songwriting style and for never really following trends in music. Song lengths often exceed ten minutes in length, and albums last for more than an hour. Within those ten minutes, they explore whatever song idea is presented fully, leaving nothing behind and nothing left out. Watershed, however, is a slightly different take on Opeth as a whole.

This is the first album since nearly the inception of the band to not feature Peter Lindgren and Martin Lopez on guitar and drums respectively. While I’d nearly cried when I first heard that announcement, Fredrik Åkesson and Martin Axenrot are great additions to the band that have both contributed to shaping Opeth’s ever developing sound.

Watershed overall is a very different album when compared to the rest of their catalog. The album is a concept album; if I recall correctly (there isn’t much on this floating around), the album was written with a focus on the darker tendencies of man and the darker aspects of the human mind. Either way, when you listen through the album, the songs are quite diverse. Some are heavier, others more epic, or brutal, or melodic or even calming. Each song is unique and feels like an individual vignette into a different idea or concept. Splendid song writing and overall album composition, in my honest opinion.

And as thus, every song deserves a closer look.

The album opens up with the shorter song, “Coil”, clocking in at 3:10. This is a very short, pleasant song featuring epic-sounding acoustic guitar and Per Wiberg’s new keyboard samples. Nathalie Lorichs, a progressive singer local to Sweden, lends her voice talent on this track. It is a beautiful piece; simple, elegant, emotional and most importantly, sets up the reflective nature of the entire album.

“Heir Apparent” opens up with some soul-ripping and brutal tone in sharp contrast to the soothing previous track. This is the heaviest and most brutal song on the album, and is a throwback to the darker aesthetic found on Opeth’s first two albums. There are no clean vocals to be found here, and while there is a broad dynamic range in the songs (going from intense and heavy riffs to calmer keyboard driven interludes) as is Opeth’s trademark, the song never travels so far so it can be considered “soft” at any point. In addition, we see a Fredrik Åkesson solo in this one. His style shows through quite obviously, and is a sharp contrast to Mikael Åkerfeldt’s. “Heir Apparent” is the headbanging, metal-horns-waving song of the album.

Next, up is “The Lotus Eater”. This is the most energetic song of the album. Not so much like the grating aggression found on the previous track, but simply moves fast, has groove, and lots of fucking energy. It opens up with an odd duet with Mikael Åkerfeldt humming counterpoint with a bassoon…but then opens up with an in-your-face power riff backed up with, of all things, a blast beat from Axe. This was a surprise, as Åkerfeldt once swore to never write blast beats into his music after Heavy Metal had beaten them down to a pulp and then some at that point. However, it fits very well, and it’s nice to see that Opeth are not limiting themselves musically because of others at the expense of themselves. This song features one of the coolest passages I’ve ever heard. After a dramatic drop in speed and mood, the song builds up into this almost funky and jazzy melody, featuring every member of Opeth prominently all at the same time. It must be heard, otherwise you’ll just think I’m spouting off like a fanboy.

The album then takes a breather, and slows down with “Burden”. This is a simpler song, it is fairly straightforward. The style is reminiscent of old classic rock ballads. It is structured similarly to “Coil”, but having three verses (though all sung by Mikael), with a series of solos intermixed in between played by both Mikael and Fredrik. It ends with a clean guitar part, however as the part is repeated, the guitar is slowly de-tuned. It is one of the coolest little tricks (if you can even call it that) I’ve ever heard, and just trips you out.

“Porcelain Heart” is the big epic piece. Rather straightforward in structure as well, it opens with a huge, pounding and epic riff, then suddenly drops down into a softer clean guitar verse. This song has constant dynamic changes, going from the huge and epic to the very intimate. There are surprisingly only clean vocals on this song, considering its length and heaviness. The voicework also features some really cool vocal arrangements obviously influenced from Steven Wilson’s time with them on the Deliverance/Damnation albums. This is a great, powerful song, and is perhaps the most dramatic and epic off of the album. They released a music video for this song as well. The video isn’t bad, but the song was edited to be about half of its original length, and cuts out an entire solo…ridiculous. The song is much better uncut.

The album takes a step back towards the more intimate with “Hessian Peel”. This song opens very soft and relatively slowly, featuring some neat clean guitar playing. It then moves into a more groove-oriented and keyboard dominated section. “Hessian Peel” is perhaps the most like Opeth’s previous work out of the entire album. It is the longest song on the album, clocking in at 11:25. It covers many different musical ideas, and develops and alters itself many times over. You hear some really cool and epic guitar playing, then the song softens and calms in aesthetic. The song then builds up, breaking into a section as heavy and brutal as Opeth has ever done, then proceeds to bounce around and back and forth between many different song styles.

The album ends with “Hex Omega”. This is another ballad-esque song of the epic variety, and is a great album closer. There are no dirty vocals on this one either, and is, in fact, mostly instrumental. It’s a relatively slower song, and caps the entire album with some grand riffs.

This album is a wonderful listen. I suggest, if you have the time, to sit down and start it from the beginning, and listen to it all the way through the end. Every song is quite different, and they all explore something different. If you already know and are a fan of Opeth, you may be thrown off with how short the songs are (still longer than My Arms Your Hearse, but you know what I mean), but just give it a couple listens, and you’ll realize they haven’t lost any of their songwriting edge, but are simply trying different things.

Opeth, starting arguably with Damnation, and even more arguably with Deliverance, moving into Ghost Reveries and now Watershed has been moving away from their Death Metal and Black Metal roots, and more towards their Progressive side. This album is much less “Metal” than their previous offerings, but it will still find a home in the hearts of many a metalhead (perhaps save the bonehead Death Metal idiots).

Opeth has always had a thing for combining beauty in with brutality, and this album is a shining epitome of
how that can be done, and not just done, but done so well, you can feel it, and not just think it.

I highly recommend this album.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant Rating:

***** 5/5 Stars.

Hello

Welcome to Music and Reviews: Don’t Read This.

This blog will be run by Stephen and Derek. They will update with a new album review at least once each week, and will post any other news they deem worthy of your attention.

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Steve Vai: Sex & Religion (1993)

Epic Records

1. “An Earth Dweller’s Return” – 1:03
2. “Here & Now” – 4:47
3. “In My Dreams with You” – 5:00
4. “Still My Bleeding Heart” – 6:00
5. “Sex & Religion” – 4:24
6. “Dirty Black Hole” – 4:27
7. “Touching Tongues” – 4:33
8. “State of Grace” – 1:41
9. “Survive” – 4:46
10. “Pig” – 3:36
11. “The Road to Mt. Calvary” – 2:35
12. “Down Deep into the Pain” – 8:01
13. “Rescue Me or Bury Me” – 8:25

I will admit that an album like Sex & Religion is not something I’m used to listening to; and I can assure that the same goes for you. There are not many albums out there quite like this one anymore. It features a star-studded lineup consisting of the great Steve Vai on guitar, Terry fucking Bozio on drums, T.M. Stevens on bass and a younger and lesser known Devin Townsend on vocals. From start to finish, this album is a wonderful showcase of mastery of musicianship, solid and mature songwriting, and, most importantly, good old rock ‘n’ roll.

Steve Vai is inarguably one of the best guitarists in the world, and is one who likes to experiment and try new things. I am not an avid listener of his, but I have dabbled in his work before. This is currently the only full album of his I have in my possession, and was rather surprised, as it was rather unlike anything else I’d heard from him before (before or after the release of this album).

The biggest surprise for me was Devin Townsend lending his talent to this project. This album is by far a throwback to classic and acid rock. I know him only from his much heavier and darker work with Strapping Young Lad and The Devin Townsend Band and the like. His voice is an unexpected, but in the end, works out very well.

The album opens up with a short intro song. It sounds epic and rather spacey…sort of trademark Vai. The opening track, “Here & Now” is like how any opening track should be: full of energy and just plain rockin’. It has that sort of Rock Out With Your Cock Out vibe to it. From there, Vai explores the three piece rock band with guitar leads, bass rhythms and drums. “In My Dreams With You” follows similarly, followed by a slower and more emotional “Still My Bleeding Heart”, which ends with a voice and drum solo by Townsend and Bozio. Fun stuff. Not exactly what you’d expect.

The title track, “Sex & Religion” is an anthem-esque song, featuring a catchy chorus and a fun everyman kind of riff without coming off as poppy. The songs in general are fairly standard in composition. They all for the most part feature the intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-redevelopment-chorus-end writing. However, the technical intensity and often manic energy of the songs still makes this a true blue Vai album, I guess. When you think “Vai album”, you come to expect these kinds of things.

“Dirty Black Hole” marks the end of the first part of the album, the last in a series of faster, heavier songs, with this last one being the fastest, in my opinion. From there, the album takes a short breather with the wonderful “Touching Tongues”, an instrumental guitar-oriented song. This is personally my favorite off the album, and when I don’t have time to listen through the whole album, I’ll skip to this fun and rather aesthetically optimistic tune. It is followed up by “State of Grace”, another instrumental track going for a Middle-Eastern aesthetic.

Immediately after the song ends, we are given a face full of Townsend’s screaming in “Survive”. The song transitions into an energetic and groovy beat in the tradition of funk and reggae. Next up we have “Pig”, a faster song that starts with Vai abusing the tremolo on his guitar. It is a return to the more Vai-ish spacey aesthetic, and utilizes some trippy voice samples and sounds.

This brings us to the second intermission of the album, “The Road to Mt. Calvary”…a rather frightening track full of random sounds more to set up a scenario than to relay a musical idea. It would not be out of place on a the album of the more theatrical Black Metal band. However, in sharp contrast, it transitions into “Down Deep Into The Pain”, a relatively aesthetically conservative song in the vein of classic rock. The second longest song on the album at over 8 minutes long, and features a lot of Vai’s godliness on that thing he throws around called a guitar.

The album closer is “Rescue Me Or Bury Me”. It is, to put it bluntly, a song featuring Vai soloing relentlessly, and assuring you that he is, in fact, much better at playing guitar than you and will always be better.

If the album were to have one drawback, it would be the lyrics. Cheesy, not very well thought out and just…not impressive. All of the instrumental performances are, however, nothing short of amazing.

It will be a harder album to absorb for those who are not quite in touch with more retro music featuring the power rock energy of the ’70s and ’80s, but if you can get past that barrier and just have fun with an album, you’ll enjoy this album just as much as I did and do now.

Thanks for reading.
-Stephen.

Stephen’s mostly inane and irrelevant Rating:

**** 4/5 Stars.