FUSEBOXX

Hailing from The Philippines, Fuseboxx's self titled album delivers a solid 57+ minutes of impressive musicality and talent. Discovered from a famous local band search, these guys emerged as the leading acts of progressive metal here in the Philippines. Gathering influences from Dream Theater, Aghora, Nightwish, while adding their own sound, Fuseboxx offered us their first installment.

The opening track, appropriately entitled Switch(4:54), starts off strong with dreamy keyboards and an obvious Mike Portnoy influenced style of drumming, the rest of the group followed their lead. Abby's singing voice can be described as warm and haunting, reminiscent of The Gathering and Aghora. The song continues with heavy riffing until it breaks into an interesting overdub of 2 men having a conversation. The album goes on with the second track, enigmatically entitled 11:28 (6:33), which let Albert (guitars) and Rodney (Bass) strut their stuff. Another male voice overdub, quoting the Bible, is once again used as an opening. The third and the only Tagalog song in the album, UlanArao(5:31), translated as Rain/Sun aptly started with gentle piano and a thunder, as if rain is about to fall. Romantic and mellow, this song seemed to be the carrier single of the album, singing about love and loneliness, and the longing to be find the light, in spite of the darkness. The first verse goes like: Nangangamba ang puso ko sa pagdating nitong ulan/Nagiisip kung paano mapapawi itong lumbay ( My heart grieves, with the coming of the rain/Thinking how will I ease this pain). Excellent song. My favorite actually. The band comes back with an up tempo, radio-friendly track Breathe(5:28), starting off with a middle eastern feel then coupled with dreamy keys and driving guitars. This track wins the catchy chorus award. Then comes the main event, the centerpiece, the 4-part epic entitled Outlet(combined time 23 plus minutes) . Coinciding with the band's name (Fusebox, get it?) this is where the band pours out their talent, musically and lyrically. But what really stands out for me is the 9th track Outlet IV. Clocking in at 8:16, it's their longest and their brightest track. This one is breathe taking, you have to hear it yourself. The remaining 2 tracks are radio edits of Outlet I and II.

Overall, this CD is one heck of an album. It offers an alternative for the mainstream music which dominates the Philippine airwaves. Fuseboxx deserves to be heard, here and abroad.