MIRAGE - A PORTRAYAL OF FIGURES

It excites me to see progressive metal bands continually moving away from the norm, and toward new, fresh sounds and combinations. Flaming Row out of Germany has released their second album, and it's ambitious for certain. "Mirage - A Portrayal of Figures" is a massive, rock opera-like album that has a cohesive, definite story to it. "Mirage" is massive in many ways, from story to guest musicians. These guests include members of bands such as Haken, Spock's Beard, Pain of Salvation, and even Ayreon. This is really impressive for a band that is only on its second album.

"Mirage" revolves around the Magistrate, a group of alien rulers that have decided that mankind has progressed too far in their technological abilities, but not far enough in their morality or unity. This certainly isn't anything new, as I can name a few albums off the top of my head with similar plots: however, the added twist is that the survivors have banded together to fight back, but a lowly soldier believes that his leaders have different plans than they claim. It's obviously quite an undertaking, and I believe they pull it off pretty well with a good twist at the end.

The lyrical content is epic at times, delicate and quiet in others. This album, like most rock operas, falls prey to a basic problem that grinds my gears. Often, the lyrics are written to be dialogue, and this ends up feeling cheap and forced, as this dialogue is usually not conducive to real songs. I especially felt this way about Ayreon's 2013 album, "The Theory of Everything". "Mirage", however, only falls into this rut a few times, as most of the album is comprised of real songs that are well-suited to the story.

The music is the shining force on this album. Calling Flaming Row a progressive metal band is a bit of a generalization, as there are many styles at work here. Sure, there are some hefty metal portions, but there are also jazzy sequences, American country parts, many European folk influences, and even some rousing "saloon" piano, for lack of a better description. These are all mixed well, seamlessly even.

The music is an eclectic mix, then, of heavy guitars (at times), dynamic drums and bass, the always excellent keys and sax of Marek Arnold, and guest musicians that play everything from Uilleann pipes, whistles, and violins to mandolins, cellos, and basically everything you can imagine. One can imagine the folksy vibe that would be present with all those wind and stringed instruments.

The tracks themselves are extraordinary for the most part. The album begins with a 16+ minute title track that feels epic and soaring. Right on its heels, though, we have my favorite track "Aim L45", a quieter, more organic and folksy tune that is simply beautiful. But, after that, "Burning Sky" starts the massive feeling all over again. This is rather representative of the entire album, as the styles and tone move up and down and all over the place. The myriad of vocalists that appear on this album make for a diverse, if sometimes hard to distinguish, array of "faces" to remember. It does feel a bit crowded at times, even hard to follow. However, the music keeps the listener grounded, and multiple listens are rather rewarding.

"Mirage", then, is a soaring story of giant proportions, one that is told well and executed musically even better. The many styles in play keep things interesting, and there are some jaw-dropping moments that really make the album what it is. Flaming Row, I believe, has trumped their first album by quite a bit here, and I expect to uncover more and more as I continue to listen to this wondrous album.

So, what we have here is the second album from German quartet Flaming Row, but is it? While Martin Schnella (guitars, keyboards, vocals) provided all of the music, based on a story written by Kiri Geile (vocals) and then arranged by Martin with Niklas Kahl (drums) and Marek Arnold (keyboards, saxophone), this is way more than ''just'' a band album. To be able to do justice to the story of the Third World War they have brought in a couple of guest musicians and the odd singer. Okay, to possibly put that more into perspective, the total singer and musician count on here is more than 30, and with the likes of Dave Meros, Kristoffer Gildenlow, Jimmy Keegan and Arjen Anthony Lucassen helping out on the music, and the likes of Ted Leonard, Magali Luyten, Simon Moskon and many others on the vocals, perhaps it isn't surprising that this is something a little special.

This is an over the top, multi-layered incredibly strongly produced album which sometimes stays in control as although each musician adds his piece it still somehow manages to remain a bombastic masterpiece instead of disappearing up an ego of its' own making. I challenge any lover of prog metal not to fall in love with this at the very first hearing, and just sit with the booklet and listen to the narration and singers telling the story while marveling at the melodic complexity that is displayed in front of your very ears. Although sounding nothing like Spock's Beard, it is almost as if they have captured the sheer brilliance of albums such as 'Snow', have then brought in some American melodic metal, combined it with the symphonic power of Nightwish while also ensuring that fans of the dexterity (both musically and lyrically) of Clive Nolan are well catered for.

Simply put, this is one of the most exciting and interesting albums that I have heard so far this year. I fell in love with it just a few bars into the first song and I kept hoping that I wouldn't be disappointed with the rest of the album while actually I just found more to savour. Each time I have played this new depths have come to light, and this has become for me one of those albums that actually prevents me writing about anything else as I just want to play it so much! It may be over the top, yet somehow there is enough restraint to ensure that it never really falls totally out of control, but rather shows that sometimes music needs to be more than just a couple of guys in a studio, and by adding so many others with their own techniques and styles it has allowed Flaming Row to create something very special indeed. The only question in my mind, is how on earth do they follow this? I note that in the booklet they state that this is to be continued, so that is something to look forward to indeed. www.flamingrow.de

German band FLAMING ROW was formed by Martin Schnella in 2008, and while it is a band with regular members, they specialize in the creation of conceptual productions involving a great number of guest musicians. "Mirage - A Portrayal of Figure" is their second creation of that nature, and was released by the German label Progressive Promotion Records in 2014.

Flaming Row appears to establish themselves as fine providers of ambitious rock operas of the ensemble variety, sporting an impressive guest list of contributors that appears to have been selected more by the individual qualities they can enrich the production with and less by their commercial impact value. The end result is a strong album, much more varied in style than many other productions of this kind. As the foundation of this project is progressive metal one will have to enjoy this type of music though, but the liberal inclusion of Celtic inspired music in particular gives the album a dimension of its own. Perhaps with a slightly limited customer base as the result, then again this might just make this CD interesting for people not all that interested in progressive metal as well. Still, it's a novel take on the metal-based rock opera, and a production that merits a check by those who tend to enjoy recordings of this kind.

Review Nº 733

Flaming Row is a progressive metal rock band originally from Gottingen, Lower Saxony in Germany. Flaming Row isn't contained to one genre, making use of progressive rock, heavy metal, folk elements and many more to substantiate their characteristic sound. The initial idea was to create a conceptual album with many different musicians, especially singers, both female and male, in the same vein of the Dutch Ayreon's rock opera project of Arjen Anthony Lucassen.

The band was formed by the German musician Martin Schnella in 2008. As I mentioned before, with influences from different styles of music, Flaming Row is a mixture of progressive metal and rock and mainstream metal. Schnella wrote quite a bit of music for Flaming Row and put it together to form complete songs. To further his ideas, Martin asked his friend Kiri Geile to join the band. Kiri's task was writing a story for the concept. Within the months both completed the story "Elinoire", a drama about a young British family. Therefore, their debut studio album was released named "Elinoire" in 2011. The recording sessions started in late 2008 but most all of the music was recorded until the end of 2009. A lot of friends and local musicians supported the duo and thus Flaming Row became an international band project. In 2014, Flaming Row released their sophomore studio work, this one, "Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures".

The line up on "Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures" is Melanie Mau (vocals), Martin Schnell (lead and backing vocals, guitar, bass and keyboards), Marek Arnold (keyboards and saxophone) and Niklas Kahl (drums). "Mirage ? A Portrayal Of Figures" has also the participation of many other artists, singers and musicians, as guests.

"Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures" is a massive rock opera-like album that has a cohesive and definite story. This is an album massive in many ways, from the length, the story to the guest artists. These guests include members of bands such as Haken, Spock's Beard, Pain Of Salvation, and even Ayreon. This is really impressive for a band that is only on their second album. This is another conceptual album that revolves around the Magistrate, a group of alien rulers that have decided that mankind has progressed too far in their technological abilities, but not far enough in their morality or unity. The lyrical content is epic at times, delicate and quiet in others. It's obviously quite an undertaking, and I believe they pull it off pretty well. The music is the shining force with its eclectic mixture of styles keeping things interesting.

"Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures" has eight tracks. "Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures Pt.1" opens the album in an epic way including a playful ragtime piano and a saxophone sequence. It has multiple layers of vocals and some interesting guitar solos. "Aim L45" is a quieter, more organic and folksy tune that is very beautiful. It's a track dedicated to a more Celtic and folk flavoured type of music with a kind of medieval touch, often visited throughout this kind of albums in Ayreon's style. "Burning Sky" starts the massive feeling all over again. This is rather representative of the entire album, as the styles and tone move up and down and all over the place. It has some melodic vocals, roaring keyboard parts alongside metal heavy guitar riffs. "Journey To The Afterlife" is very different. It's strongly influenced by the blues and country music, with female vocals that provides us subtly funk-tinged guitar riffs. This is a weird but pleasant form of embedding different styles into one single track. "Alcatraz" can be seen as a regular rock song. It's a carefully southern rock flavored variety of hard melodic rock in the best way, including some nice guitar solos. "Memento Mori" is perhaps the best progressive track on the all album. It has vocals in the Shadow Gallery's style but with a very attractive female voice, with metal riffs and a strong outburst of keyboards. This is another great track. "Pictures" sees their progressive rock being mixed with a folksy edge. It hones in on the symphonic flavoured ballad and blends this with the previously described folk- oriented style. "In Appearance - A Portrayal Of Figures Pt. 2" is the final epic, an absolute highlight. It joins the main pieces, mainly alternating between a more classic progressive metal style and the folk-inspired delicate style. It has a smooth perfect vocal part followed by powerful guitars, which are played over a nice layer of keyboards.

Conclusion: "Mirage - A Portrayal Of Figures" is a progressive work in all its splendour, moving from the instrumental frenzy to the symphonic calm and from vocal jousting to the great flights. It delivers everything that the predecessor promised, symphonic, melodic, metallic and progressive rock, which is skillfully enriched with a lot of acoustic, and even folk as well as a tiny pinch of jazz. It's dynamic, flowing, changing, yet with a distinct purpose and direction. The band appears to establish themselves as fine providers of ambitious rock operas of the ensemble variety, sporting an impressive guest list of artists that appears to have been selected more by their individual qualities. They can enrich the album but not by their commercial impact value. The end result is a strong album, much more varied in style than many other productions of this kind. For those who enjoy Ayreon's style this is an album that should be on your radar.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)