PLANET X

The debut album of PLANET X has a lot of strength, heaviness, groove and jazzy flavor. when I approach an instrumental progressive album, I tend to fear an avalanche of different solos, few logic melodies and a lot of shredding. This is not the case at all with the album UNIVERSE. You can hear songs worked at detail, catchy melodies, a lot of different time signature changes and a musical direction with taste, more than just exercises of pure skills.

Maybe that's way this album is not that popular between metal lovers, which is interesting when you see that the amount of heaviness in the album tend to segregate the jazz fans as well. They choose a dangerous balance of heaviness and jazz groove, well, that's just great for me and I'm sure there's a lot of different twist and turns to any music lover in general. Not as good as it's follower album MOONBABIES, This particular piece is wonderful because the musicians has taste, they never work "too hard -too cool" in this arrangements. Donati, Sherinian and McAlpine seems to have a partnership of years, while this is basically they first album together. The result is great, really, the musicality of the album is everywhere and the band just reached every standard of quality, both of production, sound quality, stimulant purposes that really excite me every time I push play.

On in on, maybe I'm talking too much and saying the same. Well, such is life. I think that if you just put attention to the music and close your eyes, you will have a wonderful journey of sounds and you will have fun along with it, for sure. This is good for both jazz and prog metal fans, maybe a little more pushed to heavy fans, something that they eventually tuned down in their next releases.

Strong 4 stars album, just a bit less tasted than their wonderful MOONBABIES. Hope to hear more of them any time soon.

As an ending, maybe the only problem with the album is that it's too much alike to Derek Sherinian own albums. This music is better oriented, better composed, but sometimes is hard to distinguish some parts of the song. But even like that, it's really and excellent addition to any prog collection. And I'm very glad that this album is part of mine.

The resemblance is huge really, both albums are probably the best examples of full blooded fusion in metal style containing pretty complex compositions. When I bought Quantum several years ago I wasn't too pleased with what I heard due to lack of nice melodies. Right now I realize producing straightforward melodies isn't the objective of Planet X even though I have to add this Quantum is the only album by PX I know so far.

Anyway, complexity and almost improvising fusion is actually all what this album is about and if you happen to like the style Quantum is just about the best there is on the market I have no doubt. Like I said, a near masterpiece just falling short (same as Where's the Nine by the way) because of the absence of memorable tracks. The power lies in the strength overall, no weak fillers, just great tracks on this one. So 4 stars is the only logical outcome to me.

"Clonus" has this really good heavy sound to it as synths join in. Guitar comes to the fore after a minute and again a minute later. "Her Animal" has this heavy beat with synths. Impressive. The tempo picks up after 2 minutes. Nice.The guitar rips it up 3 1/2 minutes in. "006 Boots" has this good drum intro as keyboards and guitar join in. I love the way the drums rumble throughout. Synths roll in late. "Bitch" is maybe the heaviest yet as the guitar plays over top. Synths join in too. Nasty stuff. Nice guitar solo 2 1/2 minutes in. "King Of The Universe" opens with spoken words before the music kicks in around a minute. It settles after 3 1/2 minutes with keys, drums and guitar. It picks up 5 1/2 minutes in and we get some excellent drum work a minute later.

"Inside Black" has more heaviness with lots of bottom end. "Europa" is more uptempo with keyboards and drums leading.The guitar comes in over top with some screaming attacks. "Warfinger" is dark and experimental then it picks up but it's still dark and heavy. The guitar is crying out. "Chocalate" must be the dark and heavy kind. The guitar solo 3 1/2 minutes in sounds amazing. "Pods Of Trance" is more uptempo. This is aggressive especially the guitar. It settles before 2 1/2 minutes with synths and drums. The guitar returns to change that. "2116" opens with synths, keys and drums that build. A change 2 minutes in then it settles again 3 1/2 minutes in before picking back up a minute later.

I much prefer this heavier style. A very solid 4 stars.

The line-up is the absolute best there could be, and that's partly why this is so good: Virgil Donati has an ability to see a purpose behind this most complex musical phenomena, that is Planet X. Somehow, he keeps it all together with the best drumming technique on Planet Earth, resulting in stuff that blows anyone away to Planet X. Derek Sherinian has his soul before his technique, creating beautiful soundscapes and adding the spirit to the body. His playing both contrasts and goes along with Virgil's playing at the same time. I'm very happy that the guitar player from the original Planet X album, Brett Garsed is back here, replacing Tony MacAlpine, who wasn't nearly as good choice for the band. Garsed has an incredible technique and soul seamlessly together, as any master of one's instrument should have. This however, is not common at all with electric guitar players. Anyway, I have always loved his playing and he doesn't let me down here either. Hopefully he will be on the next album as well, if there ever will be one. I certainly hope so. Now, Jimmy Johnson, a long time jazz musician does most of the bass lines for the album, and his sublime playing in the background keeps your mind focused. I don't think anyone could have added to the final piece of the puzzle better.

As a studio album it's spectacular for the first 2 listens but it gets repetitive and depending on your mood even boring. I enjoy virtuoso playing but I also demand some deeper musicality in the package. Taken as isolated tracks they are ok, but there's too little variation and even if some riffs and scales are really interesting, when taken as a whole I can't help feeling a lack of sensibility in the compositions.

A great demonstration of technical skill which will delight chop fans but which will probably disappoint more sensible listeners who search for rich prog music.

I wonder always what makes Liquid Tension Experiment so loved between the prog fans and this project, Planet X, is not with the same success... really... sure Portnoy, Petrucci and Rudess don't have rivals on their particular instrument... but Planet X manages to make more tight and well constructed songs... They do not just play extremist solos, the fastest, the heavier, the toughest... they just play good on what the music needs... that's why I loved this album...

Comparissons aside... the album has tight composition, great solos, good mood through the whole piece... great sounds for Sherinian, who prubes once again he's capable to play good, not just soloing... and when he does it... my God... is great... full of energy and very heavy for a keyboard player... I like more his style than Rudess... guess we can't stop comparing them... Rudess is faster and maybe better in every technic department... but just try too hard to be over the top... here Derek shows that sound and soul matters... besides, Macalpine and Donnatti manages to make and incredible journey...

Guess the difficult thing here is that the album is quite complete, that you cannot point at one particular song or solo and say "This is the best"... no... the complete album is great so you have to diggest the complete piece and some maybe doesn't feel so comfortable with so jazzy sound...

Well... at the end, this is a heavy production, with great production and sound quility at it's very best... tight composition... not a single mistake I found... just that is no so prog and more fussion and that's why so many people are missing out these guys... give it a try.. you should like it... four stars... great addition to any prog collection... for sure...!!!

I'm obviously a collector/fan of Dream Theater and Derek Sherinian, so I collect anything related, which is why I have this album, and the only real reason.

I found this album extremely boring... I mean, it's mildly entertaining, when you hear all that psychedelic noodling stuff, but... that's ALL the album is. None of the songs have any meaning... they never really make you think about anything. Well, I'll admit, a few of them made me think I was floating in some spacecraft above a moon/planet, but that's about it.

Most of the album is basically instrumental jamming with a jazz rock/metal fusion feel to it. But to be progressive, you have to really have an art to it... that is, it should make meaning. It should be epic. It should be memorable and creative. Right here, this is just 56 minutes worth of jamming, really. Don't get me wrong, the musicians are great musicians... obviously, Derek Sherinian, etc. But there's nothing you'll really remember... nothing memorable at all. I was quite bored for the entire time. Occasionally I said oh hey, this part sounds pretty cool, but then they kind've ruined it by going from a cool part to just a jam thing full of instruments playing random notes. I mean, there's good to come out of this psychedelic noodling because it's a pretty cool thing to do... such as the instrumental part of Dream Theater's Octavarium about 3/4 of the way in, the middle of Dream Theater's Dark Eternal Night, and several things on Derek Sherinian's solo albums. But this album... it's ALL that. Nothing but that psychedelic noodling, and it gets very old very fast.

I got this album because of Derek Sherinian, and because of good reviews... but I was disappointed to tell the truth. I'm not saying it's a bad album, I'm just saying it was incredibly boring to me. The main thing it reminded me of is putting a big disorganized mixure of sounds into a melting pot, and adding a spacey theme and jazz fusion type stuff. The guitar was kinda meh... It was heavy, but too much jazz/psychedelic noodling stuff to be considered heavy metal... I don't know what to call it.

Anyway, the instrument playing of this album is magnificent, all of it is done with great skill... it's just that this isn't very... what's the word... memorable. Progressive rock is often very creative, artistic, eclectic, and epic. This is very creative... not that artistic... I'll admit it's wonderfully eclectic mixing jazz fusion with heavy metal with progressive rock with space rock. And this album is NOT epic or memorable at all... I forget what any of the songs sound like! Then again, I only listened to it once... but it's going to be hard to listen to it a second time, I'll tell you that. The fact that there's no words makes it worse. It's not that I don't mind instrumentals, but when the instrumentation is so incredibly boring that you forget what you listened to, adding words is interesting. That's why I like Liquid Tension Experiment, it's a very fun album, full of life, and different interesting experimental parts. LTE has psychedelic noodling as well, but way less than Moonbabies, and played in a much more interesting way. Moonbabies... that's all it is, is boring jam sessions of instruments playing almost improvisational stuff. It sounded like they just came up with it out of the blue, and I'd be surprised if they actually wrote it carefully and all that stuff, seeing as the random nature of it. It sounds as if 4 guys walked into a studio, just recorded whatever in a day, and then walked out.

I dunno... some of you can appreciate this, but I can't, it's boring to me. I don't consider it progressive rock, rather, I consider it just jam session rock, along with jazz fusion and metal. A good album to listen to in the background when you've got something else to put your mind on... say while you're working. Anything to take your attention off it, because if you do pay attention to it, you won't remember anymore than if it was just background music in your workshop.

2 stars out of 5.

Well, it doesn't matter, I was referring more to the title anyways. The play on words of too~many~notes is exactly what I think whenever I listen to this project. Brimming with talent, Planet X is the (moon)baby of ex-Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian and Tony MacAlpine on guitar - and they really wanted to do something complex here. In fact, that was the actual mission statement of the band going into the recording studio, they wanted to make something monstrously complex. Call it self indulgent or call it pretentious, (the prog world certainly has heard those words enough that hearing it again isn't going to bring tears to the eyes of the artist) it really doesn't matter because if there's one thing you can't take away from these boys is that they really know how to play. If there's one thing that you can't deny when listening to this album it's the skill behind the instruments, and that is something very respectful indeed.

The music on the album is very well planned as well. It really is a crazy mix of prog metal and jazz fusion with a hint of Dream Theater thrown in there for good measure. The songs are all fairly short, the longest being around 6 and a half -ish, meaning that there's no winding epics for the artists to go on, so in that respect they've (*gasp*) restricted themselves. To compare them to anything I'd have to say, ''it's like Weather Report meets Liquid Tension Experiment in space''. These guys know structure, and they're heavy as hell. Anyone who likes a dominant keyboard and a strong lead guitar will find themselves drawn towards this one.

And yet, there's something about it which never demands more. Listening to the album there's an overwhelming feeling of the evil 'wall of sound' that so many albums fall victim to. After a while it becomes hard to pick out one song from another until about the sixth of seventh listen when they start to become different tracks. Really, the album turns into one nice big slush of progressive jazz metal.

Still, it has its ups again. Much like other virtuosos in the field of instrumental albums these guys know where to put the hooks and the catchy bits to make you bob your head along. This one is ultimately very good, but it will find more fans among those who really like their music overly and purposefully complex. 3 moons out of 5 - recommended, but more for people who really like instrumental virtuosos showing what they can do.

The album opens with Alien Hip Hop, which gets the ball rolling with some orchestration courtesy of Virgil Donati. It mixes nicely with keyboard line before Virgil jumps in with a quick and impossibly complex drum roll, only for the band to suddenly shift to a lower gear, add the guitar and start chugging. Now, I already said that I didn't know who Brett Garsed was before I popped this in, but about two minutes into this song I damn sure committed his name to memory. Planet X was gelling like I had never heard, and kept it up for an entire song, something that I thought they did only in bursts on their live album. Three minutes in, the band drops out and lets Brett play while Virgil keeps a beat that sounds simple until you really listen and hear his incredible cymbal work under the steady bass drum. This segues nicely into a solo from Derek, before Brett and Virgil hop back in at different tempos start gently slowing things down until your brain can't take anymore of the contrasting time signatures and levels out to an extent, although the challenging riff keeps until the end. This superb opener is so wonderful that it made me dump what previous slant I had towards the band, and it's not even the strongest track on the album.

Next up is the first of Allan's guest spots, Desert Girl. After some soft piano passages, his trademark synthetic guitar sound gently fades in before Virgil joins in with a simple beat, followed by Brett on rhythm guitar. Just as you get adjusted to this gentle sound, Derek switches to the keyboard and Virgil starts doing some fancy footwork and Jimmy Johnson gets his first moment to really be heard. He starts playing a rolling bassline that fits in nicely with the previous gentle sound yet also prepares the track for the sudden blast of metal a few seconds later. The band switches back and forth between the soft fusion and the jazz metal before finding the perfect transitioning into a masterful solo from Allan. Call me crazy, but I think I prefer Allan when he plays for others rather than his solo efforts. Perhaps it's because when he is subject to the will of others he doesn't sound so mechanical. Allan has always been about warm music with a cold sound, but he doesn't use as much synth on guest appearances, which is fine by me. Frankly, I think Desert Girl is one of his finest performances, and my concerns about how he would fit with the band went out the window and made me hope that he is asked back on future efforts.

Matrix Gate brings back some of the metal that the previous track sacrificed, and it opens with a great piano/guitar unison that manages to sound more fluid and musical than all of the Petrucci/Ruddess lines of Dream Theater's 00's output. The rest of the song is gloriously riffy, and the riff is no less heavy when Derek plays it with a piano as it is when Brett plays it. This song almost sounds like Brett wanted to remind us that Allan wasn't about to upstage him.

The Thinking Stone opens with Virgil casually proving that he's better than just about everyone else before Brett plays a lovely rhythm full of sustain only to fall back and let Derek take the lead. The band finds a nice sludgy riff before breaking into more of Brett's cleaner passages, which are themselves broken up by some slowly played arpeggios. Take note shredders, these mid-tempo scales sound better than about 90% of your lightspeed histrionics. Suddenly, the band drops out and Allan comes in with a surprisingly face-melting solo. Despite the insanely high quality of his solo, I found Holdsworth's portion out of place. In Desert Girl, Allan is an active member throughout the song, and, even thought he song gets heavy, it finds the perfect transition in his solo; here, it's just a sudden break. It doesn't really hurt the song, but I've been so used to the album's fluidity that it jolted me, but perhaps that is the point.

Space Foam is my personal favorite track on the album (well, that changes often). It's electronic opening leads into a killer groove between Rufus Philpot, Brett, and Virgil. Derek comes in a bit later with some lush keyboards, but he soon establishes himself as the forefront of the song. After some lines from Brett, he comes in with an absolutely magnificent keyboard solo that displays all of Jordan Ruddess' potential but without an ounce of the cheese. Not many songs can make you bang your head and come off as a swinging jazz jam.

Poland stars the second half with some piano arpeggios over Brett's piercing guitar before letting Jimmy Johnson flex his fingers again with some great lines with both Brett and Derek. Derek once again finds this crazy balance between dizzying keyboard shred and lush textures. His short solo in this song doesn't have a ton of notes, but it sounds so full and overpowering you'd swear he was playing balls-to-the-wall. Brett's solo is lovely as well. The trend continues with a similarly styled bass solo from Johnson that closes the song. In a band that prides itself on technical mastery, in a genre (prog/jazz metal) that demands it, to have three showcases in one song that are all tasteful is utterly shocking.

Snuff also lets Jimmy come to the front. I'm digging this new development. One of my chief complaints of Live From Oz was that they got the insanely talented Dave LaRue to play with them, only to barely let him do anything. In addition to Jimmy's great bassline, we get yet more inspired solos from Brett and Derek. Brett's in particular shows a beauty so rarely heard in modern metal, despite his ability to play all the tricks that proggy shredders love.

We get even more contrasting rhythms from the start of Kingdom of Dreams, with a simple drum beat under a complex piano line and a great riff. Suddenly, the band switches into full on stomp-along mode before Jimmy and Derek play some killer unison lines. Around the 3 minute mark, Derek plays some keyboard that sounds an awful lot like Allan's guitar before Brett gets his true moment in the sun. His solos throughout the rest of the piece are so technical yet so refined and musical that they could both inspire and put off a generation of potential players. Brett's rhythm and lead work might just eclipse the astounding work he's put in on the previous tracks.

The album closes with the monstrous Quantum Factor, and if you thought the rest of the album was complex, strap yourself in. Virgil Donati's been amazing throughout the album, but his work on this track is so astonishing, so polyrhythmically insane, and yet so groovy that you'll be hard pressed to listen to him and think up a long list of modern drummers (or drummers from any time period for that matter) that can play in the same league as this master. His playing alone is worth a few dozen listens, and yet everyone sounds great here. Brett pierces the stratosphere with his guitar before crashing back down to hell to churn out some bone-crushing riffs. Derek lays down the atmosphere before flying out of it for some killer solos. Rufus is the least present player on the track, though his job entails keeping up with Virgil Donati on perhaps his greatest kit workout, and that alone qualifies the reputation he's been rapidly building. A killer end to a killer album.

Now, I must admit, I've always been somewhat prejudiced against Derek Sherinian. As a matter of fact, even in this review, I compare him (though favorably) to his Dream Theater replacement, Jordan Rudess. I've always viewed him as the weakest member of Dream Theater, and rarely revisit his recordings with the band (I even listen to the Live Scenes version of A Change of Seasons). I thought he was more about image and trying to be rock rather than really rocking, and that he brought down Dream Theater (a band of which I am an admitted fanboy no matter how stale their formula has become). However, this album made me realize that he's perhaps the most musical of any DT alum (his only competition being John Myung and Kevin Moore), capable of actually tempering that skill with a song I want to listen to. He, like Moore before him, doesn't play as many notes as Jordan, but ultimately the atmosphere and wide range he brings to the table are far more valuable. Before this album, I found his previous Planet X output technically masterful,yet ultimately not very engaging. As I go back and check out the discography I've shunned for years, I see that Derek always played like this, so Quanum's success cannot be fully attributed to him, although his songwriting definitely improved. I can only assume the missing ingredient was Brett Garsed. His playing captures all of Tony's technique, but adds a liberal dash of groove and catchy riffs, which makes the whole thing like a truly great jazz album; demanding yet catchy. I hope to God that this isn't a one off studio session on his part, as he is the catalyst that realizes the band's potential.

Normally when I write a review, I offer a very brief synopsis of the songs before talking about how the album as a whole affected me. However, as I started to write this all I couldn't help but mention all the various aspects of the band's sound, how the songs had infinite time shifts yet were ultimately fluid. I've been trying to cut down on five star ratings, but a masterpiece is a masterpiece, and this is certainly that. The band that I just couldn't get suddenly came out and released one of if not the best jazz fusion albums since its mid-70s heyday. It's so dizzyingly complex that you have to listen to it a number of times, yet it is so catchy and accessible that you'll want to.

Grade: A