Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Redemption - The Origins of Ruin CD (album) cover

THE ORIGINS OF RUIN

Redemption

 

Progressive Metal

4.07 | 222 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Gatot
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars If you love energetic music, this one is definitely for you!

For those of you who love progressive metal or specifically Fates Warning, you might have expected this album will be somewhat similar because this involves Fates Warning's lead singer. That's actually what I expected before spinning this album. But when I spun at the first time, I found it different, musically, from what i have been hearing from Fates Warning albums. It's not that completely different because it's progressive metal, so you still can find some heavy riffs here and there. The first time I spun this album was under the situation when I drove at the highway, returning home from Bogor to Jakarta. What a great experience, really, in a sense that I was alone in a car and I wanted a company. It has always been the case that rock music is the best company for such situation. So, you can imagine how uplifting my feeling at that time. Especially when I found the opening track was truly an energetic and dynamic music. This is a good sign because I could fully enjoy the music while driving alone. The music cheered me up! Remember, to me music is emotion. Whenever I find a music which can dilute smoothly into my heart, i can consider it as a good or excellent one.

So to say, I consider "The Suffocating Silence" (6:37) is definitely an excellent track. It's not just that the soul and grooves meet my expectation and situation-wise fit my taste. Even, if I am listening to it in different situation, I still would say that this opening track is an excellent one. Look at how the band has successfully combined high energy, melody, riffs and rhythm section blend beautifully in relatively fast-speed music. The keyboard solo by Nick van Dyk really surprises me in a sense that I had not expected the song would come into this way. Yes, there is a Dream Theater part at approx minute 5:00, and it's still a very nice thing to have in this album. Anyway, we get used to this kind of music, right? Surprisingly, I don't get bored having (again?) this kind of combined riffs and music harmonies in relatively fast pace fashion, until the song ends. It's superb!

"Bleed Me Dry" (6:55) kicks off in ambient mode with tight bass guitar line which brings the music enters nicely (drums and guitar) where it's obvious that Bernie Versailes plays its role on early guitar solo just before the music enters into soft guitar riffs that accompany vocal. It's another excellent track that I enjoy as well. Ray Adler's vocal reminds me strongly to Fates Warning but the music that accompanies is quite different. "The Death of Faith & Reason" (4:51) brings the music into heavy riffs in fast tempo with bass guitar serves as main rhythm section. The third track maintains the momentum of high energy delivered right from the opening track.

As the title implies, you might find the next track "Memory" (9:30) provides something soft. Yeah, you are absolutely right! The band is smart to stick around with our emotion. Just right after the first three full blast, high powered and high energy music, they thought it's about time to take a bit of break. The opening part of this fourth track gives you some sort of relaxation with relatively long ambient music for approximately 2.5 minutes until it moves in crescendo with some more energetic rhythm as well as vocal line. In fact, this is a very nice track with relatively smooth style changes over time. There are some breaks with piano and it continues with excellent fast speed music, stunning guitar solo, rhythm as well as grooves.

"The Origins of Ruin" (2:47) is another nice break with soft piano work that accompanies low register notes of Ray. It's a very good track, indeed. "Man of Glass" (5:05) brings the music back to progressive metal scene with good combination of vocal and musical instruments. The next track "Blinded" (5:55) starts mellow and moves into more energetic performance in medium tempo. The ending part of this track is truly inspiring, where keyboard, dynamic drums, guitar and bass work together nicely in neat composition. I admire that the ending part is really great.

"Used to Be" (6:08) is a fast speed music with nice combination of guitar riffs, keyboard and dynamic drumming. "Fall on You" (9:24) is, I think, the best track the band offers to us. It has all the ingredients of symphonic prog with metal vein. The music flows beautifully from start to end with in some cases the rhythm section that comprises riffs are beautifully combined with piano fills and stunning guitar solo backed with multi-layered keyboard sounds. Even though I do not find any weak track in this album, it sounds to me that this last track is very well-positioned by the band to conclude the album. It has become my preference having a nice combination of heavy music riffs with symphonic keyboard work, and this track gives me this satisfactorily. The keyboard solo at approx 6:30 is really inspiring and I fully enjoy this part.

With such comments on track-by-track level, what do you expect me to say about this album, overall? I have no reason to say that this is a damn excellent album that satisfy my expectations. It has great energy, nice melody, tight composition, relatively fast tempo music and .. last but not least .. the overall album demonstrates cohesiveness of its structure and composition. Highly recommended! Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

Gatot | 4/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this REDEMPTION review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.