HEADSPACE

Headpsace is a young prog metal from UK but with veterans in prog rock and prog metal realms featuring here. Their first opus released in 2012 at Insideout label and named I am anonymus is a good towards great album, but I can't say is a groundbreaking album as many pretend to be. The cherry on the cake is for sure, at least to me thexcellent vocalist Damian Wilson, he has a super voice and fits perfectly here, also the keyboards of Adam Wakeman sounds pretty much ok, but nothing really impressive. The guitar is crunchy goes very much most of the time in prog metal territory with both mellow passages and more furious ones, each time Pete Rinaldi done a good job. The highlight is for sure, the opening track Stalled Armageddon, this pieces reminds me a lot of Threshold Extinct instinct era, both in manner of composing and aswell the voice of Wilson, a great prog metal tune with tempo changes, smooth passages and all ingredients to be a fairly solid track. The rest I can say are only ok, are good for sure, but nothing really excellent moments to my ears. Still a band to watch in the future they might come with a second offer as a nice surprise. 3 stars, maybe 3.5 in some parts.

This album was eagerly awaited by many progheads, and with good reason. The line-up alone is enough to get anyone interested, and I tend to have a standard rule of thumb that anything that involves Damian Wilson is worth investigating. The first time I saw Damian on stage was a solo artist with an acoustic guitar opening up for Shadowland and Jadis at the Marquee on the Lurve Ambassadors tour a million years ago, and since then I have been lucky enough to catch him in concert with other groups and have most of his recorded output. To my poor abused ears one of Rick Wakeman's finest albums of his entire career is 'Out There', and who is the singer? Damian. But wait, there's more, who is the bassist? Lee Pomeroy. The Wakeman connection doesn't quite end there as drummer Richard Brooke has also played with Rick and is where he met the others. In fact you have to feel sorry for guitarist Pete Rinaldi as he is the only who hasn't played with Rick ? but at least now he is playing with his son as the keyboard player is none other than Adam Wakeman, who has well as being known for playing with his father has been with Ozzy for the last eight years and I can remember interviewing him years ago when he had the band Jeronimo Road. Now who could have been the singer with that band? Oh yes, that would have been Damian. It's all very incestuous in the prog scene.

So given that we have world class musicians, songwriters, producers and singer would one expect an ordinary album? Of course not. Perhaps somewhat surprising is that the album is more metal oriented than one might expect with Adam's presence, but given than he plays with the price of darkness and Damian fronts Threshold maybe not quite as much after all. But it isn't all blasting guitars and riffs, one of the most effective songs is "Soldier" which is a poignant short number with Damian being accompanied mostly be gentle piano chords ? the use of a tolling bell in the background is simple yet incredibly effective, taking the song to a whole new level of emotion and atmosphere.

"Daddy Fucking Loves You' is based on a conversation that Damian had with a soldier, where the soldier told him of the time he was trying to describe to his young child why he had to go overseas and eventually he burst out with that statement in frustration. It is fifteen minutes long, and starts with gentle acoustic guitar and clear vocals, but it soon becomes a prog metal monster. The riffs sound as if they could have come from Fear Factory, not a prog act, and one can imagine a mosh pit going for this one ? until Lee and Pete decide that they are going to lock horns and provide a load of complexity not normally associated with industrial metal. Dischords and jagged edges as the song twists and turns means that this takes on a life of its' own as it cross musical boundaries and creates a huge statement. It has taken these guys five years to produce their first album, something to do with them all being busy on other projects, let's hope that it isn't as long until the next one as this is the beginning of an incredible musical journey. www.insideout.de

This album was one of those albums that I went in to having no idea what to expect, and came out feeling very pleasantly surprised. If you've heard of this band, you've probably heard the name Adam Wakeman. Yes - THAT Wakeman family, he's the son of Rick Wakeman. But the name you may not have heard in connection to this project, but should have, is Damian Wilson - the vocalist for Threshold and one of the vocalists of Arjen Lucassen's Star One. Damian adds his stamp to this album in a big way. Having heard the name of Adam Wakeman in reference to this band, I was not prepared for the big, heavy sound that came forth. And then when Damian started singing I immediately thought "why did I not hear that he was in this band as well?" His voice is well complimented by the sound of the band, and his singing comes across with intense power. I've always been impressed with Wilson's singing as being one of the few tenors I've ever heard that I would describe as sounding powerful, and the heaviness of this album enhances that effect. There is a maturity to this release that you would not expect from the first full album of a band, with no one member of the band taking the spotlight but each member playing his part in creating a lush soundscape. The overall tone of the album is darkly epic, with peacefully serene sections only reinforcing this effect. Each time I listened to the album, I found myself thinking I needed to rate the album a little higher than I had originally thought, until I got to a point where I decided that this album is quite near to perfection, and is most definitely in my top 5 Progressive Metal albums of the year.

The first sign of life of this UK band featuring Rick Wakeman's son Adam - who is handling ... what? ... the keyboards of course. 'I Am' is an EP consisting of four songs which are constantly crossing the art rock and prog metal border. Oh yes ... I should not forget to mention Damian Wilson here who also contributed to bands like Landmarq and Threshold respectively diverse other projects. Both already had another collaboration by the way - for the band Jeronimo Road in the 90s. And bassist Lee Pomeroy is actually also involved in It Bites. Now this points to the fact that HEADSPACE holds prolific musicians - which is not always a guarantee for an excellent output though.

This time it is - so much about the first summary. Here we have catchy melodic songs which are surely placed in contrast to a plain heavy rock attitude. Never Let Go starts as the most accessible one I would say - however the song foreshadows the trickiness of this production by all means with changing time signatures, a remarkable refrain and prog metal adapted riffing guitars. Adam Wakeman puts in some interesting modern synth contributions but nevertheless takes a backseat here in the whole. Sane Life starts like a ballad, relaxed with electric piano and acoustic guitar, but then switches to a nice groove - Wilson is at his best here - charming as well as expressive - including some symphonic impressions - great!

Presented in a (modern) art rock outfit Symbol shows guitarist Pete Rinaldi contributing more than metal riffs and Sober finally culminates to the furious finale - alternating between balladesque and powerfully implemented parts. Yeah - this is partially damn rocking! 'I Am' is a production with really enjoyable songs - great musicanship - Adam Wakeman plays his instruments accentuated, multi-faceted. If produced as an appetizer this makes curious for more in any case - I hope something will follow. If you are interested in sophisticated heavy (prog) rock music you shouldn't miss that - recommended!