DWELLING IN THE OUT

InsideOut is continuing their never-ending stream of great progressive rock and Metal releases. The most recently releases contains such great names as The FLOWER KINGS, MASTERMIND, VANDEN PLAS, PLATYPUS, TRANSATLANTIC, SPOCK'S BEARD and DIGITAL RUIN. The band was formed in 1988 and they released their debut album "Listen" in 1997. This is the follow up and the first album on a major label. DIGITAL RUIN's music is heavy and melodic progressive power metal with reminiscences to DREAM THEATER, FATES WARNING and VANDEN PLAS. The musicians are very technically skilled and the songwriting is on a high level. Although the production are a little bit rough, it's a very enjoyable album as a whole. Recommended, especially if you're into Prog Metal!

This is a dark, heavy, atmospheric and somewhat muddy sounding release. The lyrics are about the thoughts of different people who suffering emotionally. We hear their anger, fears, desperation and defiance. The music itself reminds me a little of FATES WARNING at their heaviest, while the vocalist's tone is similar to James LaBrie from DREAM THEATER but his singing isn't as good and he seems to be down in the mix. This album is relentless in it's heaviness and rawness.

"Living For Yesterday" features some synths in the intro as heavy riffs come thundering in. Vocals after a minute. We get a calm 3 minutes in as the guitar plays a laidback solo. Emotional vocals follow. The heaviness returns 4 1/2 minutes in and gets even heavier. A ticking clock ends it. "Darkest Day" opens with a killer guitar riff. This is heavy !Synths and vocals before a minute. A ripping guitar solo after 3 minutes. "Dwelling In The Out" opens with slow, heavy riffs before vocals arrive. This song is about the emotional pain that is felt and endured when a lover leaves.The slow sludgey passages are contrasted with the not so heavy(still heavy) sections where the guitar really grinds it out. Guitar solo 4 1/2 minutes in is a highlight. "The Forgotten" opens with gun fire as this song is about the casualties of war(the forgotten). There are spoken words in this one as the guitar riffs and heavy drums light it up. A calm with reserved vocals after 2 minutes. The sound is crushing and the vocals are emotional pleading "Remember me... " I love the calm that returns again to end it. Fantastic tune ! "Adrift" opens with a catchy beat with lots of atmosphere. Reserved vocals arrive. Heaviness comes in as the sound builds. Synths on the chorus. It lightens before heaviness returns 4 minutes in.

"Night Falls Forever" opens with piano as heavy riffs come and go. Vocals come in softly as piano continues.That all changes as the TOOL-like drumming comes in with passionate vocals and riffs.The heaviness is here to stay. A blistering guitar solo 5 minutes in. "Machine Cage" is a science fiction based song. Synths swirl as a heavy undercurrent of bass, guitar and drums rumble and riff. A surprisingly tasteful guitar solo 3 minutes in. Nice. Love the raw guitar solo that follows. "Letting Go" features relentless and punishing riffs. Synths and vocals join in.They step it up a bit 3 1/2 minutes in. "The Agony Column" opens with some atmosphere before some nice heavy riffs come in. Vocals follow. This might be the best vocal performance on the whole disc. The chorus isn't as heavy and it really sounds good. Guitar solo after 3 minutes and the song gets heavier a minute later. "Along The Way" is the final and longest track on the album. It moves at a fairly slow pace. It opens with piano as vocals and heaviness soon arrive. The vocals and riffs are outstanding 2 minutes in. There are some vocal samples in this one as well 4 minutes and 5 1/2 minutes in. In between we get a screaming guitar solo.

Stay away if your depressed ! This is a dirty, raw and heavy release. 3.5 stars.

Good musicians + terrible voice - originality = mediocrity.

That equation sums all that I have to say about this copy/paste exercise.

Let me just very briefly elaborate in each constant in the equation:

Good musicians: well, the guys can play, and very well. Great guitarists, a very good drummer and very capable bass player. There's no room for complaining about the instrumentalists. The recording, by the way, is cristal-clear, so one can enjoy the quality of the players even more.

Terrible voice: DREAM THEATER's James Labrie has always divided the fans: either you love him or you can't stand him. I happen to like his vocals a lot, he's one of my favorite vocalists in all prog. Now, what would happen if suddenly Labrie had a throat infection and couldn't sing, and his vocals chords were damaged in the process? Well, enter DIGITAL RUIN's singer to give us an answer: HE. He's exactly what I just described, Labrie after an earthquake, something like that. He's this band's weakest link. If you like DT and ever complained about LaBrie vocals during the AWAKE era (when he had problems and couldn't sing as well as always), then imagine that voice, take all the character off of it, and you have DIGITAL RUIN's voice.

Originality (or lack thereof): The music is very similar to DREAM THEATER, with hints of FATES WARNING and DREAM THEATER, also with influence from thrash metal and DT. There's not much originality in the music.

Mediocrity: this music, besides all the problems I mentioned, is mediocre. I couldn't find a single chorus that was memorable, a single solo that played with my heart and with my mind. I could find a couple ofm decent riffs (mostly in the title track) but even the song structures are very simple.

Not a great album. It's not a tragedy as it has good musicianship, but it's not enough to warrant any recommendation.

Digital Ruin are the kind of progressive metal band that I don't realy enjoy. They play that type of dark, depressive progressive metal that I don't like almost at all, I never was a fan of this type of prog metal and I never will be. Their second release from 2000 named Dwelling in the out issued at Inside out , is to me a real desaster, or at least almost, the sound, the pieces, the voice all are forgetable here, only the keybords and some guitar parts save the album not to be a mediocre at best. I don't realy find the masterful parts that are in the description of the band written so nice, realy where the hell are those parts, not if I'm listning to this album 100 times, here are mid tempo pieces with boring arrangements and dark elements added on every piece. I have nothing against this band , realy ,all the time I try to be hones in reviews, no matter if is a 2 ir 5 stars album, this time is a 2-2.5 for me. Not my kind of prog metal, I have this album since it was released and I don't think it was spining more then 5 times in 10 years, no wonder now, because the music is terimbly unpleasent for my ears. Not a forte track here, almost all sounds the same, mid tempo pieces with not realy skillfull parts, sometimes sounds like an indie alternative band but more on metalic side. Not recommend , not even for prog metal fans, not to mention the rest. Anyway great cover art, realy.

The second album from American progressive metal band Digital Ruin is interesting, and certainly warrants playing a few times, but I found that it didn't quite capture me as I thought it would. There are some interesting parts of songs, with the guitars and vocals coming together just right, but there are plenty of times when somehow it doesn't quite gel. With Savatage and Queensryche being obvious influences one would imagine that this would be a stormer of an album but it isn't.

Probably not an album to be dismissed as quickly as I have, but I just found it difficult to maintain the interest. Maybe another time.

Feedback #57, March 2000