NOAH

UNWRITTEN PAGES, from The Netherlands, apparently started out by chance, with a science fiction story that started developing a life of its own and sent creative trio Frederic Epe, Michel Epe and Glenn out on a quest to craft a rock opera suitable for it. From 2005 and onwards the album slowly took shape amidst a continuous struggle to finance it and follow the whims of the muses guiding the creators, with notable musicians such as Karl Groom and Damian Wilson adding their input as the project evolved. In 2010 what one might assume is the partial end result came in the shape of the double album "Part I: Noah", subsequently picked up and released by the US label Progrock Records.

With "Part I: Noah", Unwritten Pages have launched their initial effort with a fairly ambitious rock opera. And while not quite the finished article, this is a rather enjoyable effort. If science fiction-based concepts and progressive metal sounds like a good mix to you, this is a double CD that just might be of interest, especially if you are the type of person who will listen to the music with the CD booklet in hand, following the lyrics and the story explored with close attention.

I generally have mixed feelings about Progressive Metal concept albums mainly because of the many times I got burned by flawed releases that many fan consider to be pinnacles of the genre. But when I think of it, it's not so much the concept albums but rather particular bands and artists, who promote themselves as conceptual metal giants, that have done more damage to my judgmental mind than the genre as a whole. I'm talking about Ayreon, Shadow Gallery, Blind Guardian and a few others... oops... almost forgot Kamelot!

The reason for my rant is the mere fact that it feels so refreshing to actually hear a great Progressive Metal concept album that doesn't rely on the well-established clichés of the past/present and manages to move things forward. This is exactly what Frederic Epe and his backing musicians manage to achieve on Noah! This entire album is filled with music that will hijack your mind from the first time you'll hear it and will continue to grow until you'll master this 80+ minute beast. This is at least what happened to me; I started off listening to Noah with the bare minimum expectations imaginable but was met with such a versatile album that I just couldn't get it out of my head for weeks and felt like refreshing that memory every now and then in the process!

There is really no reason for me to go into detail about the individual tracks since Noah should only be heard in its entirety. This might actually be considered somewhat of a drawback due to the album's hefty length that reaches just above the regular size of one CD. Once an artist/band releases this much material, the results are bound to vary in quality. Hopefully, the individual moments are developed just enough to hold all the pieces of the puzzle together and thus create quite a solid and fluent piece of music.

If you're a fan of conceptual Progressive Metal then you should already have this album in your collection since this is an essential piece of storytelling that can be compared to Pain of Salvation's Be and Dream Theater's Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory. Seriously, stop wasting your and my time and get this album already!

***** star songs: Prologue (This New World) (5:36) Solar Blast (6:46) Falling Stars (8:24)

**** star songs: The Boy Is Awake (3:42) In the Name Of Ishmael (7:36) Royalty & Conspiracies (6:31) Red Ashes (The Privilege of War) (3:02) Blowing Red Ashes Pt.I (3:45) The Uranium Machine (5:16) Unexpected Twists & Turns (3:25) These Haunted Days (4:14) Blowing Red Ashes Pt.II (6:13) Flora & ..(4:45) Life (5:27)

*** star songs: Deimos Theme (6:58)

Apparently, this original started life as a story-based project back in 2005 by Frederic Epe (vocals, keyboards), but over time it became a musical collaboration between Frederic and Michel Epe (guitars) with Glenn (production, guitars). To create the science fiction concept album they wanted, they brought in others such as Damian Wilson (Threshold, Ayreon), Karl Groom (Threshold), Davy Mickers (Stream of Passion, Ayreon) and Alejandro Millán (Hello Madness, Stream of Passion) soon joined the project to bring the story to life. Swedish designer Mattias Norén, created the artwork that appears in the booklet with the lyrics. But, while this 2010 has been hailed as a major success by some, I'm not one of them.

It is doubtful that I will ever criticise an album that involves Karl and Damian as I am such a fan of both their works, but what lets this down is not the performance but the quality of the songs. This is prog metal, but it is disjointed in just so many ways. A good project album will feel either like a band, or a rock theatre production, yet this one falls between the two camps and comes across as disjointed and just way too over the top. It is too layered, too over produced, just too much altogether! There are bits that grab the attention, but for the most part it is about wondering how much longer this has to go, and whether now might be a time to switch to something else.

It's not awful, it's not bad, but I can't bring myself to say that it is anything more than good at best, and when looking at some of the people involved it just goes to show that the basis of any album must be the quality of the songs. If the foundation is shaky, then the structure is never going to be sound and stable. The only real positive about this is that now I've written about it I really don't have to play it again, and it is doubtful that I will.