INTROSPECT

'Introspect' is the 1998 debut by American progressive metal group The Quiet Room. I came across this album on eBay back in its heyday (do people still shop on there?), when searches would often have it come up, being advertised by sellers as similar to prog metal pioneers Fates Warning. That was enough to pique my interest, and to be fair, the similarities in their sound are uncanny.

However, the one resemblance they don't share is quality. Following the typical prog metal blueprint of ambitious song structures with extended musical passages and wailing, high-pitched vocals, The Quiet Room don't really offer anything that hasn't been done better by someone else.

The musicianship is fantastic, and these guys are all more than capable at playing their instruments, but sadly not so much at song writing. Everything seems pretty jarred and disjointed. Oftentimes songs wonder off into aimless territory, twisting and turning in ways that lose my interest instead of engaging me. It's a shame, because the album starts off pretty strong, with opening tracks 'A Different Scene' and 'Grudge' being respectable enough, but anything after struggles to keep my attention longer than a couple of minutes.

No doubt progressive metal was still mostly an underground subgenre at this point, and with only a handful of bands breaking into the mainstream, The Quiet Room are one of many lost causes that were destined to become obscure, forgotten hopefuls.