Heritage

I must apologize about not doing anything blog-related over the weekend - I've been kept busy from both family and university. Regardless, I picked up Opeth's Heritage (HMV finally got around to stocking it), and have given it a listen. It's... interesting.

It's not a particularly good start, to be honest. I've read a lot about how Opeth have moved toward a more prog-oriented sound, abandoning traditional death metal influences in the process, and it's intriguing to see how it all plays out. Interestingly, despite the album being, in many ways, a throwback to the 70's prog bands which have influenced the band (hence, presumably, the title of the album), the songs are generally shorter than on previous releases. Trying to pack so much content into smaller time frames has not necessarily improved each song's quality - the first two 'proper' tracks, after the piano opener, have a somewhat disquieting shift in the middle, which sounds less like the songs are flowing, changing, living creatures and more two shorter creatures stapled onto one another.

The album grows on you, however. Definitely. The aforementioned tracks are the exception rather than the rule - the band definitely prove that they can craft wondrous songs without dipping into the extreme metal pool, with tracks like 'Nepenthe,' 'Häxprocess,' and the eight minute epics 'Famine' and 'Folklore' being joys in particular. Opeth fans looking for more of their older, heavier stuff should definitely approach with caution, but, the end result of this evolution is a solid album.

Not So Dramatic?

A look at Dream Theater's 'A Dramatic Turn of Events.'

An apt title, though the reason why it is apt is apparently not why it was chosen. Dream Theater’s newest album came out recently, and I picked it up (there’s a lot of good albums coming out around now, with Opeth and Mastodon’s latest opuses being on my wanted list as well). I managed to get the collector’s edition, because, once again, my local HMV refused to stock anything else. So I get an extra 60 minute discography (remember the whole ‘search for a new drummer’ thing they posted on Youtube?) and, I think, instrumentals of the tracks. Truth be told, I haven’t spent much time with the second disc, so I’m still not sure as to its contents, but that isn’t what matters now.

I’ll avoid discussing the whole almost-eponymous situation regarding the departure of Mike Portnoy and the introduction of new drummer Mike Mangini. There’s been plenty of coverage of that, and anything I say would just be a rehashing. Simply put, this post will focus on the music itself.

The album definitely opens on a strong note, in particular 'On The Backs Of Angels, which is a very good song. It’s classic Dream Theater, taking all that’s good with previous songs and extending it. It’s the same with every song – classic Dream Theater. And can it really be a bad thing if a brilliant band continue to do what makes them so good?

Well… yes. There’s little to make this album stand out. Their best albums had Dream Theater making changes to their sound both subtle and overt, and, when it worked, it made them stand out – it was these little flairs which made these albums so great. ‘A Dramatic Turn of Events’ lacks this uniqueness. This is, perhaps, the sound of a band who has found a comfortable place and begun to grow complacent, a band who has grown afraid of risk-taking. This is a bad thing in pretty much any situation, but it is an atrocity in progressive music which is focused on doing something new, on change, on progressing – it’s there in the fucking title!

In truth, I expected this. The band chose the safe route with Mangini – he’s a good drummer, yes, but my fear is, and has always been that his style is too close to Portnoy’s. It’s hard to blame them, really – if they’d changed, fans would have been furious, claiming the new drummer has ruined the band or other such inane statements. So, in the end, they played it safe.

Don’t get me wrong. I like this album – it’s a good listen. Genuinely, it’s fun. But, apart from ‘…Angels’ and ‘Lost Not Forgotten’ (a delightful song), there is nothing that stands out. It’s good, but nothing outstanding, and, for that, it pales in comparison to previous albums. And that’s damning for a band that is the pioneer of a genre that, at a base level at least, frowns on complacency. Dream Theater have become what so many other ‘Prog’ bands have become – competent, indeed, excellent, musicians, who copy the genre leaders. In this case, they’re copying their own formula, and avoiding innovation in the process. I’m definitely going to listen to this album some more, but I don’t see it lasting as long as other albums. It lacks that little… spark of genius that makes a classic.

Stratiovarius - Elysium

So, I was thinking of kicking this blog off with a review of an album I bought recently, Stratovarius' "Elysium." It was a spur of the moment purchase - I had never listened to the band before, though I had heard of them, so I had no idea what they sounded like, except comparisons to bands like Kamelot and Blind Guardian.

I have to say, I was quite pleased by my impulse buy. I generally am, for some reason - whenever I buy an album for whatever reason other than having heard a lot of their songs before it usually turns out to be a good decision. Thrice's "The Alchemy Index", Paradise Lost's "Faith Devides Us, Death Unites Us" Periphery's self-titles debut, and a few others were all bought for no real reason beyond "Hmm, that album cover looks cool," or "Hey, there's a band I read about before!", and I found them to be surprisingly good. If anything, the successes of random purchases has led to me being more open minded in regards to music - I'm more likely to listen to a band I have no prior knowledge of now than a few years ago.

Anyway, I bought the Limited Edition version album from HMV because I had a spare £20, and because the cover was shiny. Very shiny. For clarification purposes, here's the standard album cover:

To let you understand just how shiny the Limited Edition is, I didn't know that was the cover image. That's not because the art isn't on my version, it's because it's obscured by shininess! It's difficult to read the song names on the back in anything other than pitch black! It took me about ten minutes for my eyes to adjust and let me see what album I had just purchased! Hell, there were a few minutes when I was worried that I had just bought an exceptionally bright box.

Ignoring the eye-rending colour-choice, then, and onto the actual album. I didn't buy the Limited Edition, incidentally, because I always do that - it was literally all HMV had. I always thought that special versions of albums were something fans of the band would pay an extra fiver for, for meager bonuses, or for gloating purposes - alternatives to the standard version. But no, apparently HMV opted for the more costly one, probably for the potential for profit. Not that I'm that surprised, they tend to have little in the way of anything decent in stock.

Anyway, in terms of extra features, there's quite a decent selection. There's these little cards, one for each band member, on which there are messages from the band which pretty much boil down to "Thanks for buying our music, come see us live!". Somewhat sweet, but not worth forking out extra money over. The real meat, though, is in the form of a second CD, which consists of demo versions of all the songs on the album. While you could look at it as being pointless (after all, you've already got the finished version), I personally like it, some of them are quite decent despite being unpolished.

As for the music itself? Yeah, it's good. For the most part it's standard, catchy power metal played by skilled musicians and a singer who is undeniably talented, but a bit of an acquired taste. I'm not saying he's bad, it's just that it takes a few listens to get used to his voice. There are no poor songs, and the ones that really stand out are those with progressive touches - such as "Infernal Maze" and the colossal, 18-minute long title track - and the softer, slower paced songs - "Fairness Justified" and "Move the Mountains". All in all, it turned out to be a great purchase - an album with songs more brilliant than the box they come in.