DREDG

On the third album, the band's ambitions decrease slightly; however they can now benefit from certain experience in avoiding embarrassing moments from the debut album. Music is more streamlined, balanced. Vocals are warmer than before. The songs are fine but not particularly memorable; in fact it's the production differences that is more noticeable among each song. "Planting seeds" and "Matroshka" are two exceptions with their melody. This is an average accessible and sometimes melodic alternative rock that doesn't stand out but won't offend the majority of listeners. I'm stopping my music discovery with this album by Dredg and recommend listening to "El cielo" instead. Cheers!

A big improvement over their debut album, the band has more clue what they want to achieve and achieved certain maturity. Songwriting improved significantly. Music execution is pretty versatile, from bits of electronica, alternative rock or slight crossover prog. Sonically, we hear more than just the standard rock instrument trio as there are melodies! "Whoa is me" is an evidence - tasteful instrumentation, good vocals, piano and catchy melody. We even hear a saxophone here. Yes, I forgot to mention improved singing and drumming. Whether it is an excellent addition to a music fan collection? Still I don't think so, but it may be their best album.

Alternative rock with raw vocals? Why not if there are other compensating controls such as: Great songwriting, instrumental diversity, creativity or a desire to experiment. Out of these, only the latest one is present. The album has undeniably a great dose of energy, there are sonic differences in terms of intensity and some good guitar playing. Guitar is by far the most advanced instrument here. I like the sound of the snare; however not enough to praise drumming all way through the album. The biggest disappointment is the 20-minute experimental song where I had big expectation due to its name and length. It feels like the guys talked for 5 minutes what they would approximately do in the next 20 minutes and the sound engineer forgot to balance the treble elements of the sound.

DREDG were one of the many bands that emerged in the 90s with the intent to mix alternative rock with more progressive elements. The band was formed in the San Jose, CA neighboring city Los Gatos as far back as 1993 by vocalist Gavin Hayes, guitarist Mark Engles, bassist Drew Roulette and drummer and pianist Dino Campanella. During the early years the band played a rough around the edges mix of post-hardcore and nu metal as heard on the early EPs "Conscious" and "Orph" but caught the progressive bug by what sounds like a reaction to Tool and started to incorporate more art rock and progressive elements into the otherwise alternative metal mix.

The first full-length debut LEITMOTIF was originally released on 30 May 1998 by Universal with the original sepia colored photo of terrestrial topography with some foreign looking characters that spell out the band's name for artistic decorative purposes. The album was re-released in 2001 by Interscope with a plain tan digipak and then again on vinyl in 2010 by Ohlone with a more colorful green photo of Earth's topography. The album has been in and out print many times and remains the lesser known albums since the following "El Cielo" and "Catch Without Arms" are the ones that gained the band some notoriety.

A LEITMOTIF is a recurring musical theme associated within a particular piece of music, with a particular person, a place or even an idea. It's also a melodic passage or phrase that is associated throughout a musical even with a specific character, situation or element. This is a concept album that is based upon the adventures of a wise man who traveled around the world to become a pure soul. He is visited by a spirit who drops him the horrible news that his morality is diseased and the only purification is to travel the world and eschew from the destructive impacts of commerce and greed. The music is designed to accompany this journey and the different scenes that take place around it.

Musically speaking, DREDG is basically a Tool light. The band implements the same sort of repetitive bass grooves and heavy alternative rock guitar riffing that borders on metal but is usually more subdued. There are plenty of clean guitar sequences that alternate with the heavier passages and occasionally some strange sounds that are claimed to be played by the band's instruments and not electronic effects. The music while progressive in some senses remains fairly standard alternative rock and is overall a little too one dimensional for the tastes of many progressive rock aficionados. Despite the grandiose storyline, the music doesn't deviate from a standard 90s alt rock mode.

LEITMOTIF is much less polished than DREDG's following albums and showcases a more direct and raw sound that generates some interesting guitar tones and distortion uses but the riffing is fairly standard and never deviates from following the rather consistent bass grooves. The drumming likewise is subordinate to the bass and guitar that pretty much keeps the beat without getting too crazy. Gavin Hayes' vocal style is nothing out of the ordinary either as he fits the mold as the typical alt rock singer of the era. Personally there's nothing really compelling about LEITMOTIF or DREDG in general as far as i've heard. This band owes a lot of their sound to Tool but fails to capture the charismatic dramatic flair that Tool was able to generate through their hypnotic use of bass grooves and progressive embellishments.

Perhaps i'm just too hardened. I love bands that really know how to deliver the goods and DREDG just cranks out a rather generic version of prog light mixed with alternative metal. When all is said and done, this just makes me want to listen to Tool's "Ænima" or "Lateralus" so i can get a sense of satisfaction which this doesn't deliver. The album is also woefully long clocking in at nearly 55 minutes but only has about ten minutes of ideas that they repeat ad nauseam. IMHO this album neither conveys the storyline nor delivers an interesting mix of musical goods. There are many times certain parts remind me of the Mars Volta and in that regard DREDG were onto something but never really ran away with allowing TMV to steal the show. Sorry guys, this just doesn't do it for me in any way. Leaves me thoroughly bored

When "The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion" came out I was a little frightened. There's a reason people say, "I like their early stuff" when talking about almost any band. It's because 90% of the time it's true. With early albums the sound is fresh, a band is able to explore and experiment as they seek out their sound, and the listener is blessed with a variety of fresh flavors. The first three Dredg albums were exactly that, each alike yet vastly different from the next in execution. The reason why I was scared when "The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion" was released was because Dredg had finally been around awhile, and were moving away from "early album" territory. Much to my surprise The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion" exceeded expectations. It was another beautiful installment, which I likened to "El Cielo", an album I still consider one of the greatest rock albums, and easily the best of their musical career. Not even a year and a half after the release of "The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion" my fears were realized again as Dredg announced they were already back in the studio for their fifth album. I thought it was much too soon, and the album took hardly anytime in the studio to finish. You know, I really don't care if a band changes their style. In fact, I welcome most bands doing so, and recognize most bands will gradually change their style probably without even realizing it. I figured I'd buy it anyway. Trust me - my problem isn't that the album has an electronic or "pop" style overtone at all. I knew only one of two things could come of this "new sound": either this album was going to be mind-blowingly good, or just a waste of time. Now, I understood there would never be another, "El Cielo" or "Catch Without Arms". Never would there be another song like, "The Canyon Behind Her". I dealt with the fact that it would be near impossible to recreate anything in the Dredg discography. But that doesn't mean the CD could not have the same strength. This album is probably the weakest among the five albums. The clever song writing that could be found on the other four albums is not there. It doesn't have the same heart behind it. The fantastic opening tracks and strong conclusions I had become accustomed to were now dulled. The songs sound like they have no substance or feeling, something I am not used to saying about Dredg. Everything is bland and unfocused. This, however, does not mean the album is a complete waste of time. If you're willing to take the time and listen, Dredg is still there. Still, some tracks, like Another Tribe, Kalathat, Where I'll End Up and even the final reworking of "The Ornament" i found to be something Dredg fans should enjoy. |But at the same time as a Dredg fan, I feel I need something else. When the last track was finished I thought, "That's it? We're just going to stop right there?" Maybe I was so used to the 16 track "El Cielo" or the ambitious 18 track "The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion". I feel like I wanted something emotional, but instead recieved a cold shoulder. I didn't get what I was expecting or what I was in the mood for. If it were a debut album from another band this CD I might be a little more into the music, but it's the soul of Dredg fans wanted, which, for the most part, cannot really be found on this album. In closing the album is very flat, has very few layers and many uninteresting songs. It also suffers from poor production - the album sounds and feels rushed, from the cover to the packaging to the music.

For collectors and fans only.

The appeal of Dredg is simple: their music is progressive, strange, multi-instrumental, original, unique, and most of all, powerful. To give you an idea of the talent among these individuals, Dredg incorporates the use of many instruments into their primarily guitar-driven rock sound. All sounds on this record are real, no samples.

El Cielo is a concept album based on Sleep Paralysis. To make a long story short, sleep paralysis is a disorder in which sufferers will find themselves unable to move either before or right after sleep. During this time of paralysis, a person may experience hallucinations and other imaginary scenarios, as well as an overwhelming sense of terror and feeling that death is upon them. In the songs on this CD, Dredg explores this disorder and different aspects of it. Interestingly enough, singer Drew Hayes crafts his lyrics through these letters, while the music paints a perfect picture that reflects the somber melancholy mood.

The album opens with "Brushstrokes: Debtfoabaaposba" which stands for Dream Caused By The Flight Of A Bee Around A Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening, a painting by Salvador Dali. Now comes the first real song "Same Ol' Road", which is a pretty good indicator of the rest of the album. It is melancholy and dreamy, with one of the greatest vocal parts ever. The singing is melodic and beautiful, full of emotion. The arrangements are masterful, which I guarantee will hook you. The next song "Sanzen" opens with a guitar riff and a good vocal melody. Contrast is an important part of this album, and Dredg uses this element perfectly to their advantage. Beautiful. "Brushstroke: New Heart Shadow"is a quiet, ethereal, clean song with a jazzy beat and an atmospheric guitar riff, which goes straight into Triangle, almost continuing the song but in a new movement. The tracks flow very well together. "Triangle" has a quiet high guitar line and very ethereal feel as well. "Triangle" features a great vocal melody before going into a more upbeat section of the song. Very atmospheric throughout, with a whispered vocal line mirroring the main vocals. Then a quite, Eastern-like section ends the song, going straight into one of the heaviest riffs of the album on "Sorry But Its Over". The verses are quiet and sparse, the choruses heavy. Another perfect example of contrast. Track seven "Convalescent" is a very upbeat, groovy tune, showing the quality of Dredg's rhythm section. "Brushstroke: Walk in the Park" leaves me speechless. It is an extremely beautiful duet between a melancholy piano and ethereal background strings. This goes straight into "Eighteen People Living In Harmony" which begins with Gavin singing through a trumpet to give his vocals a muffled and distant effect. "Scissor Lock" is my favorite pieces on this record. Nothing here but stunning and shimmering clean guitar lines, that float around underneath a beautiful vocal melody from Gavin. The lyrics in this song are the most obvious reference to sleep paralysis. The sleepy ambiance is continued with "Brushstroke: (Reprise)" which is a slow dreamy rendition of "Same Ol' Road". On track twelve "Of the Room" we have much needed energy during the building intro. The verse has a sliding guitar riff with odd intervals, that locks in perfectly with a contrasting bass line. The verse builds into a colossal chorus with a huge atmospheric sound. Absolutely amazing emotion in this song." Elephant in the Delta Waves" is an eastern piece that does very well in capturing a visual medium that goes with the sound. It is a very interesting piece that feels like it gives closure to Of the Room. Track fourteen "It Only Took A Day" is a great catchy song. The vocals, guitar, and bass are in unison, which is surprisingly not repetitive or boring. "It Only Took A Day" stops suddenly and "Whoa Is Me" opens with a sparse trumpet note before Gavin's vocals. The arrangement of this song is somewhat awkward, but it works, especially after subsequent listens of the song. The last track "The Canyon Behind Her is a fairly long song. An atmospheric and ambient guitar, keyboard, and bass soundscape open the song. Gavin's vocals are hypnotic and sad, giving off a feeling of loneliness. A faint back up choir can be heard until it builds up to an absolutely huge and epic conclusion giving the record a great sense of closure.

An essential masterpiece of progressive rock music.

dredg over the course of their career so far have had two masterpieces, this album and "The Pariah, the Parrot, The Delusion". The other albums have been sort of all over the place, good albums but not quite up to par to these two albums.

This album is a concept album based on a painting by Dali called "Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening" which according to the band symbolizes sleep paralysis which reportedly Dali's wife was plagued with. There are several letters written by dredg fans about sleep paralysis and each song on this album (except for the "Brushstrokes" instrumentals) contains some words from these letters in the lyrics.

The music is guitar-based prog but with a good mixture of keyboards added in which provides a good texture to the music and helps with the variety that is inherent throughout the album. The main songs and the transition pieces in between work very well together and help the songs flow into each other nicely, which is how a well-planned concept album works best. The transition pieces add to the album instead of provide filler, so every part of this album is important. The songs are full of dynamic changes and a lot of styles are used which keep the music interesting. I love variety and there is a lot of it on this album, but the album is still concise and everything fits together well.

One problem with a lot of modern music (especially popular music) is that you can listen to an album and every song follows the same style or pattern so nothing usually stands out. This is a problem bands like U2 has ran into on their recent albums. They get rutted into a certain sound and pretty soon everything sounds the same...every new song is just another song. dredg gives a perfect example of how an album should sound, but they are not concentrating on generating a couple of hits and then adding filler to have enough material for an album. The reason why so many other bands suffer from this is because of digital downloading and the move away from album-oriented music. Hopefully, however, with the resurgence of vinyl, people will return to album- oriented music. With dredg on this album, however, most of the songs here can be listened to on their own just fine, but it works even better as a whole and with that they have accomplished something pretty amazing. That, along with some well written music that utilizes progressive elements very well, gives this music the perfect balance. Plus there is enough of a challenge to this music to make it interesting and intriguing.

So, I do consider this a masterpiece of modern prog music, even though it is not heavily immersed in prog, it deep enough to be quality art rock and is very enjoyable, beautiful at times and exciting in others. I love this album and can't see giving it anything less than 5 stars, even on a progressive rock scale.

This is quite an early E.P. release from dredg which approaches black metal more that it approached progressive rock. It sounds nothing like what dredg would sound like later. I don't consider this a terrible album, but it's only relation to progressive rock is that they were attempting to provide a heavy sound that also had some progressive structure to it. The songs are kind of same-y with a lot of rap, growling vocals and not much else. The best track is "Juggernaut" which at least holds some hope of the great dredg sound that was to come later.

Like I said, this is not a bad album. The drums sound somewhat like toy drums almost, but the guitar hooks are great. It is to the album's benefit that it is an E.P. though, because by the time the last track plays, you are ready to say, "I've heard enough now" because there isn't much in the way of versatility here. But at least it is interesting to hear how this excellent band got started. Hard to believe that they would produce the amazing albums that would follow later.

Ok so this one is probably considered a collectors item, but don't expect any more value out of it than that. Fans will definitely appreciate it and so will most black metal fans. 2 stars.

It looks like a lot of people were shocked at the sudden change of direction of this album compared to dredg's other albums. I believe what they were trying to achieve here was a more popularized alternative feeling with this album, more electronic and almost hip-hop feeling like Gorillaz or Minus the Bear. Those bands have utilized those sounds quite effectively and well. Unfortunately, this attempt by dredg just feels flat. That is a good way to describe the sound here. However, I think if they choose to continue in this particular direction, they might be able to come up with a better album than this if done right. We already know what kind of excellent music dredg can achieve from the masterpiece albums they have released in the past; namely "El Cielo" and "The Pariah, the Parrot and The Delusion". There is no doubt that if instead they decide to return to form that they can release more great albums. Time will tell I guess.

In this album, all the rough edges and hard guitar are gone. The vocals are good on some songs and sort of flat-lined on others. The lyrics are sometimes interesting, and sometimes repetitive. The electronic drums that are used from time to time seem to drain life out of the songs. The guitars are pushed to the back and electronics are given the lime light. Emotion seems to be missing on these songs.

As much as I love dredg's music from past efforts, I try so much to pull something good out of this album, but it is just so hard to do so after the amazing music that I have heard them produce. I can't even see them winning over more fans by popularizing their music in this way because it just sounds too plastic. Maybe I can help you understand how bad this sounds by comparing this to Styx with their albums "The Grand Illusion" and "Cornerstone". The first was a masterpiece and the other was a miserable failure at attempting to popularize their sound. The main difference is I feel I could rate "Cornerstone" at 3 stars. I'm afraid I can only settle for 2 stars here because of a couple of okay songs like "Kalathat" and "Sun Goes Down" that show a little hope, but even that hope seems watered down compared to their amazing work from the past.

The first Dredg album I got my hands on was "The Pariah, the Parrot and the Delusion" and after listening to it about 3 times, I came to appreciate how wonderful that album is. Next I got "El Cielo" and once again after a few listens, I fell in love with that one too. So.....the one in the middle should be just as good right? Well, I'll say that it's not terrible, but it isn't as great as either of the albums before or after it. Pretty much what most of the reviewers have been saying about it on this site is close to how I feel about it too. Good music, still on the hard side of progressive rock, but not as hard, not as loud and not as progressive. The songs are somewhat too similar, but as I grow accustomed to the album, I expect I'll start to hear the differences. I guess this must have been an attempt for the band to find an audience, but thank goodness that the next album was just as good as the one prior to this. So, a band is experimenting with it's sound, there is nothing wrong with that, but unfortunately you get some things that work well and others that don't work so well. I can't discount dredg by saying that they aren't good, because I have heard how great they are. But I wouldn't recommend basing your opinion of them on this album alone. Yes there are highlights here, but they are fewer and farther in between than they are on the other two albums I've mentioned. I think you know how this one is going to be rated right? Middle of the road or Good but non-essential pretty much sums it up. 3 stars (you can add a half a star to that if you want for good quality and a few "highs"). Start with the album before or after this one first. You'll be glad you did!