SANITY

Sanity is a total obscure progressive metal band from Holland with some history behind in this field. Formed in late '90's and haveing half a dozen releases in their career, I don't know if they are still together today, because they don't give to public anything since 2005. My only CD with them is this one from 2003 selftitled. Well first thing , the timing from here is like for an EP, less then 25 min, only 4 pieces, but for my surprise is a long play, everywhere I've looked to see some reviews about the album it said that this is a normal LP. Anyway , this dutch band has some intristing arrangements here, they are not a DT clone, they sound more like another progressive metal band from Holland, Casual Silence. They also have some symphonic moments here and there, to give some atmosphere to the compositions. The skills of the musicians are ok, but the sound and mixing is like from e demo. A pleasent four pieces, that gives a proper view of Sanity sound, nothing realy excelent but ok in the end. Nice keybords and guitar interluded and some quite pleasent vocal parts comeing from Kees van Keulen. So, if you like Casula Silence, Ulysses also from Holland try this band, not easy to find, but not very hard either. 3 stars, good but totaly non essential.

The Netherlands is a hotbed of prog-rock and one of the latest entries that will enter our consciousness is SANITY. Its funny, I would think that they would have named themselves Insanity to be more inline with the formula of prog-rock being out there and different from any other music, although that sounds more like a punk name so SANITY works.

This DVD/CD set shows the band performing in a small nightclub called Twentietoe. You can tell by the reaction of the crowd after each song that there was definitely not a large throng of onlookers there. I think the band was more interested in having a decent stage to perform on to cut this video than having a typical concert hall audience to acknowledge each song. This is a low budget DVD; there is no doubt about it. The camera work is average and the lighting suspect. This is not what I am accustomed to at all; I guess you could call it a demo DVD at best.

The band does the best they can with what they have to work with so I have to give them credit. SANITY is a good band, musically they are solid and tight and the lead singer Kees van Keulen sounds like Iggy Pop and Bowie all rolled into one person. His voice suits the driving punishing riffs of guitar man Jereon Hoegee. I could most certainly appreciate the timely rhythm section of Roger van Acquoy (bass) and Fred den Hartog (drums) as well. Nathan Cairo provides the necessary symphonic elements with flurries of keyboard virtuosity to take off the harder edge of Hoegee's guitar. The sound of CAIRO's fluttering keyboards smoothes out the edges to make it all sound like true metal-prog.

I like what I heard but the theatrics and imagery were nonexistent in this performance. I think if this band ever puts out another DVD, they need to work on getting some of those important elements to go along with their great music. I know it is expensive to provide all of that entertainment on stage and they are not to the point yet were they could do this on a regular basis. I think it is something to think about if they are going to go through all the trouble to make a DVD again. I would suggest listening to the accompanying CD first to get an idea of what they sound like then checking out what they look like onstage after that. Get some of your own imagery conjured up in your head so you can let it unfold inside your mind while watching them gig. They have a story to tell and the music to move it all along, they just need someone to discover them and help them push it out there some more.

My rating: 3