DREDG

El Cielo seemed a bit of a strange album to me, at first. I'd been introduced to them as a progressive band (some time ago) and was not expecting the songs to sound so... down to earth in their structure. Upon first listen, I wondered if this band was really progressive. Upon further listens I realized that this was not only progressive, but a masterpiece.

Sure, some of these songs show off a sort of ambient pop sensibility. But does that make this bad? In no sense of the word. If this album had been any more complex in its musical approach it would not have achieved what it was striving for - down to earth emotion. And that's not to say this album isn't complex, either; it simply keeps its intricacies subtle, and not immediately in your face. And this simply -works-.

But the most notable thing about this brilliant sophomore effort is the level of *emotion* achieved here. The songs Same Ol' Road, Sanzen, Scissorlock, Of The Room and 18 People Live In Harmony particular stood out to me in this respect. There are many points in this album where I get chills, where I just want to pump my fist up in the air and sing along as loud as I can. That, my friends, is the sign of power in music.

Overall, this album is simply a magnificent journey, recommended to not only prog fans but music fans. As long as you aren't overtly anal about music maintaining a certain amount of technical complexity, this should be a very intriguing listen.

The band is obviously talented. Most of the music consists of tastily wrought layered rock songs with plenty of variation in playing and instrumentation. Especially the short instrumental interludes are lots of fun. When everything falls into place (as on Pariah for example) Gavin Hayes' voice is an excellent asset in their overall sound. But more often then not he does not do his band mates justice. Songs like Gathering Pebbles and Information have strong melodies but are wrecked by their bland siropy pop choruses. Also Saviour, Cartoon Showroom and Quotes rarely surpass the second-rate U2 level that the singer reduces them to.

Dredg has a very skilled vocalist but maybe they should make him play the flute or let him dance or something. Anything that silences him a bit more will make this band really rise above the murk.

The music can be described as post-Radiohead indie rock with much of the mentioned echo-box guitars and an occasional heavy guitar power chord. I honestly don't have a clue why this band is featured here but at least I got to know them because of it. And that's a good thing as I appreciate a bit of well done pop once in a while. One needs at least a few albums you can play when your mother is around.

"Pariah" I must confess I wasn't expecting this introduction, which has children (and the lead vocalist) vocalizing over some drums and piano. Heavy instrumentation follows, and then distorted vocals takes over. It seems there's a coat of distortion on nearly all the instruments, including the bass. The chorus is excellent- just the sort of thing I hoped for from the band.

"Drunk Slide" This is an odd instrumental interlude, with weird synthesizer, varied drumming, and heavy guitar from time to time.

"Ireland" A powerful pop song with pleasing guitar in the beginning. The refrain is one of the best ones on the album.

"Stamp of Origin: Pessimistic" This soft fifty-second interlude has gentle vocals and lullaby-like instrumentation (making it almost sinister).

"Lightswitch" Church organ and gritty guitar begin this one. It's a decent song, but somewhat forgettable.

"Gathering Pebbles" Clean guitar (sped up exponentially in the studio) serves as the background for this track. Ultimately, though, this piece could easily be a teenage pop hit, since it's very catchy and has a chorus I can just picture thousands of adolescent girls screaming over- not exactly "MMMBop," but not too far from it either.

"Information" This piece begins with beautiful clean guitar and piano. The simple eighth-note rhythm and the powerful melody during the verse sounds like something U2 might do. Once again, the chorus is something right out of a teenage girl's ringtone library. The narrative bridge is a nice touch, though, leading into tremolo guitar and more gorgeous clean guitar.

"Stamp of Origin: Ocean Meets Bay" The shortest track is a thirty-second, four line interval over soft instrumentation.

"Saviour" Heavy guitar and electronic vamping make up the bulk of this pop track. The chorus is one of the strongest moments of the album, although that isn't saying much, since it's little more than another catchy hook.

"R U O K ?" After some electronic and industrial-sounding noises, a calm pair of guitars floats in over simple easygoing drums.

"I Don't Know" By this point the album is being dragged by its own facelessness. This is a heavy rock song with a decent chorus, but nothing striking, especially musically.

"Mourning This Morning" Instead of merely bland pop, this time there's a slow disco feel and a somewhat R&B flavor to the music. The lyrics are on the cliché side. Almost a full minute of peculiar noises ends the track (including electronic bleeps and boops, clanging sounds, and a kid crying).

"Stamp of Origin: Take a Look Around" One minute of the album is yet another breathy lullaby-like piece similar to those that share in its title.

"Long Days and Vague Clues" Strings accompany the band in this torrential burst of creativity. The instrumentation superimposes dissonant static runs over melodious thundering.

"Cartoon Showroom" After the crashing that came before, the band returns to softer music. It is full of acoustic guitars, delicate backup vocals, and lush keyboard.

"Quotes" There is beauty to this disjointed mess, but it's hard to enjoy because of the lackadaisical arrangement and uninspiring musicianship (the lead guitar part during the instrumental section is purely anticlimactic- the piece was begging for something powerful, and the guitarist plays the same note over and over again). As if almost trying hard to maintain a progressive label despite a horde of pop songs, the band tacks on a noisy and unrelated piece of music onto the end of the track.

"Down to the Cellar" Very similar in feel to "Cartoon Showroom," this is an instrumental is quite creative in terms of arrangement, even if it never leaves the realm of simplicity.

"Stamp of Origin: Horizon" Speaking of simplicity, this final track has a straightforward piano (albeit swamped by effects) and soft vocals. Spoken word, as through a radio brings things to a conclusion.

"Brushstroke: Dcbtfoabaaposba" This short "brushstroke" consists of scribbling noises and strange synthetic sounds. The strange title is an abbreviation of the painting by Salvador Dali that inspired the album: Dream Caused by a Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate One Second Before Awakening.

"Same Ol' Road" Straightforward bass and drums begin the first song. From the first time I heard that clean guitar introduce itself alongside the soft male vocals, I felt I was in for a real treat- I was not mistaken.

"Sanzen" Exquisite, delicate, and yet powerful, this song has something of an Incubus feel, with washes of various guitar-produced sounds. The chorus is perhaps the most memorable and most powerful moment of the album (although there are an array of them sprinkled throughout). When the music isn't smart rock, it's atmospheric, beautiful, jazzy, or any combination of those adjectives.

"Brushstroke: New Heart Shadow" This is a short, instrumental that makes me think of moments from the album Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"Triangle" Distant drums and soft synthesizer begin this excellent song. The lyrics are exceedingly powerful observations about life's little ironies: "Watch it explode, while it's not impossible for flowers to bloom and grow next to graves and babies are born in the same buildings where people go to pass away." Musically, a couple of themes make an appearance here.

"Sorry But It's Over" Acoustic and clean guitar play an imaginative riff under somewhat somber vocals. The heavier chorus retains soft vocals, and haunting sounds are incorporated into the mix. This is a terrific piece that rivals similar songs from bands like Porcupine Tree.

"Convalescent" Yet another progressive pop homerun, blending both a catchy series of verses and a chorus with gritty guitar and clever instrumentation. The ending is almost self-depreciatingly funny.

"Brushstroke: Walk in the Park" This is a delicate interlude played on piano and strings- simply gorgeous.

"Eighteen People Living in Harmony" A grating guitar rubs against otherwise gentle instrumentation During an intensely soft passage in the middle brings back the scratching from the first track. Atonal squealing from the violin takes over at the end.

"Scissor Lock" Again, the lead singer offers an elegant melody, this time over soft yet upbeat music.

"Brushstroke: (Reprise)" A basic beat and unadorned keyboard is the foundation for this reprise of (despite the title), "Same Ol' Road." The second half has slide and acoustic guitars, in a way reminiscent of the section "Soon" from Yes's "The Gates of Delirium."

"Of the Room" A musical motif from "Triangle" returns here in full form and as part of a full song. Vocally, this is a powerful track, and it features some lovely ornamental guitar.

"Brushstroke: An Elephant in the Delta Waves" An unexpected Middle Eastern-sounding interlude, there's a female vocal here that's nothing less than breathtaking.

"It Only Took a Day" Here is one of the heaviest tracks on the album, swamped with distorted guitar and thick drums, but the vocals rise cleanly and sweetly above it. The instrumental section is indicative of the band's penchant for terse versatility.

"Whoa Is Me" Peaceful guitars make up the verses, and the chorus typical heavy rock. For the jazzy section at the end, there is a delicacy of placid saxophone and soothing piano. A "radio announcer" at the end talks about the piece being inspired by lucid dreaming ("The clarity of consciousness rather than the vividness of the dream"), an important aspect given the concept of the album.

"Canyon Behind Her" The final track is a stellar one, with glorious vocals and vigorous instrumentation throughout. Beautiful choral singing concludes this wonderful album.

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This album has a fine collection of songs, each one appreciable as the last. The variations in instrumentation, both playing and tones, are very impressive, because it doesn't seem over-done. Everything just falls into place. Whether it be the piano stylings of the opening track, Pariah, the classic-rock power track, Ireland, or the uplifting and vocally-driven, Quotes, this album is sure to be stuck in your head long after your listen. I'm sure many debate the prog elements of this album, but the song structures aren't your typical "prog" jams with extremely technical constructions; this is something more subtle. A lot of the chord progressions are moving and/or just groovy. In the end, that's what music is best for. Whether or not one likes the actual music, it'd be difficult for someone to say that they didn't put a lot of work into writing this. The songs just have so much more "umph" to them than all their other albums. This was the piece of work I've been waiting for from them.

This album is exactly what it means to be; it doesn't strenuously strive for anything it can't achieve. Everything is smoothly written, with no strenuous passages or progressions, and you can feel it's completion once you're done. I had my favorite tracks from this album, but I soon found that all the rest warmed up to me very, very quickly. This is definitely a fine example of more modern progressive music, and is definitely up there on my top albums of the year. It's a well-crafted album and I encourage the opportunity to take a curious listen.

Starting from almost nu-metalish stuff, DREDG released their groundbreaking "El Cielo" in 2002. It was good, but too uneven. The next one, "Catch Without Arms", was guilted of being too poppy. 4 years of wait, and now we have a balance point between "El Cielo" and "Catch Without Arms" - an album which is easy-to-get-into, with tracks like "Information" or "Mourning This Morning" on the one hand and some pretty experimental stuff like "Long Days and Vague Clues" on the other. Being still a mainsream record, "The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion" serves as a good example of balance between art and pop for any Modern Prog band which longs to be popular. While album's imaginery side B is a bit weaker than side A, it's still worthy of its 60 minutes, there's not much filler, every song has something to add, but seriously, it's sometimes too eclectic and I rarely listen to it from beginning to end. Nevertheless - highly recommended, give it a listen!

For 57 blissful minutes, the listener is taken on a brilliant musical journey concerning the medical condition known as sleep paralysis, and the power of dreams. Much of the lyrical content in 'El Cielo' revolves around testimonials and anecdotes of individuals that have either suffered or been enlightened by their reveries. Keeping this in mind, dredg beautifully weave a spectrum of emotions into the musical framework, going from feelings of devotion ('A Walk In The Park') to fear ('18 People Live In Harmony') to melancholy (the most prominent feeling in the album.)

There is such a musical integrity to this album. Despite having a very alternative-rock sound, there's alot of progressive happenings throughout the album, and alot of styles being thrown around. There are parts reminscent of a mellow maudlin Of The Well, the atmospherics and dramatic buildups of Explosions In The Sky the jazz breakdowns of the Mars Volta and alot of something that can only be described as being trademark of dredg themselves.

A total, emotional masterpiece, and one of the greatest modern progressive albums of all time.

?.So close.

This is by far dredg's most diverse and complex album to date. A wonderful culmination of everything they have done and a logical step in their career path. There are the radio-potential tracks, segues to piece the concept together, some deep philosophical songs and some songs that even touched up on the avant-garde genre.

The beginning is just simply haunting on 'The Pariah' with girls humming with finger snapping and then just a really hard rock/heavy metal breakout to get things underway. Then on the next track 'Drunk Slide' you get exactly what the title says?a really strange piece with some ear piercing synth sounds that would just not be expected to come from a band like this. Then we have 'Ireland' which is a killer hit, really hitting home on some dynamics with some loud build- ups into an explosive chorus. Other songs that are easily accessible are 'Information', 'Saviour', 'I Don't Know' and the wonderful orchestral 'Mourning this Morning'.

Then the album has some really downright depressing songs. Hell, the whole album is one big suicide mission, but songs that really make you feel uneasy go to 'Ligthswitch', 'Gathering Pebbles' and 'Cartoon Showroom'.

This is definitely the best album dredg could come out within this point in time. I don't find any flaws here, but nothing that will just blow me away and make me want to sit in the corner like 'El Cielo'. This album took me a lot of time to get into, but it is clearly a diverse effort, but still manages to work as one cohesive piece unlike the album before this, 'Catch Without Arms'.

When I first listened to it, I thought it was ok at best. This is an album where you cannot come in with expectations, but just let the album hit you.

I won't deny the amount of pop sensibilities in the music, but it certainly is just as well crafted as anything else they have done. All the songs strengths or weakness depending on the listeners point of view will be in the chorus, it is the focal point of every track. The pressure was laid on Gavin to get some catchy lyrics in there, because the instrumentation isn't as great as the previous two efforts but it is still interesting. The album is haunting in a way with some pieces containing child laughter, a young girl singing the chorus of a later song at the end of a previous one which is not your conventional pop album. I found this album to be even more depressing then 'El Cielo'. My only problem is a lot of tremolo picking done by the guitar which started to get a little samey, but I certainly won't complain about the songs all in all.

I never have a favorite song on this album?only temporary ones. Each and every month I have a different one, to the point where every song was once considered my favorite. It speaks for the album, it wasn't best as a 'whole', but I found each and every song to eventually hit or lose my interest.