DROPSHARD

Very homogenous stuff which moves around the border of heavy prog and metal. And so stylistically they are not taking new adventurous turns here, do not choose seperate paths really. There's no need on the other hand. Perfect vocals, song writing and execution still is on a high level, probably even more sophisticated. Time will tell. I once again love this songs without exception. Beautifully underlaid with mellotron patterns Lost evolves to the EP's masterpiece when it comes to me. Please check this out!

I recall Dropshard's debut album as a fine and promising production by a progressive metal band with an accessible sound and style, one of the numerous quality albums that comes my way during a year that was a solid experience with a fairly large potential audience. Three years have changed a few aspects of this band however, and the most profound change is that the style explored on this album is one that by and large isn't progressive metal.

Apart from a few short interludes and atmospheric laden additions, the compositions on this album see Dropshard develop from a progressive metal foundation over to one with a stronger connection to neo-progressive rock. While I actually don't regard the band as substantially much different as of 2014, my experience is that the focus and foundation have been given a shift. So there are still harder edged passages present, and quite a few with more of a distinct progressive metal vibe as well, but these are now additions and expansions rather than a fundamental trait as I experience them.

Most of the songs here has a tendency to open in a more careful manner, Vocals and piano or acoustic guitar, or accompanied by relatively gentle instrumentation in sequences that may well be described as melodic rock rather than progressive rock as such. These soon expand into arrangements that have more of a neo-progressive character to them, with careful guitars and accompanying keyboard textures supplementing the strong and distinctive lead vocals that is an important aspect of this production. From there and on the compositions develop with a bit more variation, but a common trait is that some harder edged guitar riff and keyboards arrangements will appear at some point. Not always as a a distinct progressive metal run, but at minimum a harder edged and darker toned one. Some of the tracks, especially the longer ones, will then alternate back and forth between passages of varying intensity and stylistic orientation prior to coming to a close, while the shorter cuts have a stronger tendency to develop in a more straight forward manner with less of these quirky structural developments.

With the aforementioned more delicate interludes, as well as at times liberal use of sequences with more of a cinematic character, the end result for me at least is an album I'd categorize under neo-progressive rock, as my impression is that the ties to this segment of the progressive rock universe are most defined this time around. Not in a manner like Marillion however, but rather with similarities to the kind of material a band like Sylvan explored a few years back. And my recommendation is aligned with that view: Fans of bands like Sylvan and perhaps also later day RPWL is what I regard as a key audience for this album.

Dropshard's "Silk" is a top ten of 2014 album for me. There: I put it out there. I do not consider 2014 a very good year for prog, with notable exceptions, of course. Dropshard's album fell into my mailbox a few months ago, and I didn't hear it until November or December due to a busy life. Once I put it on, I knew why it was sent to me, and I knew I had found one of those exceptions.

The band is made up of Enrico Scanu on vocals, guitars, and flute; Sebastiano Benatti on guitars; Valerio De Vittorio on keyboards; Alex Stucchi on bass; and Tommaso Mangione on drums. These guys instantly appealed to me with similarities to my favorite bands, like Riverside. Alex's bass is easily one of the highlights here, as is Tommaso's drumming. This rhythm section is dynamic, crazy, and all over the place in everything except quality. Add soulful guitars from Sebastiano and Enrico and peaceful, beauteous keys from Valerio, and you get a huge range of sounds. The last piece of the puzzle, though, is Enrico's emotive, expressive voice. Enrico sings gorgeously, and he is especially good at singing conversationally with perfectly placed vocal lines.

Tracks such as "Eyes", "Cell 342", and "The Endless Road" are particularly attractive with amazing instrumentals punctuated by stirring lyrics and vocals. Emotions rage and delicate feelings are expressed. Heavier in some tracks and fragile in others, "Silk" appeals to all the senses.

So, if you like modern progressive rock with a bit of an edge, get "Silk" as soon as possible. Dropshard has their own sound and their own footprint. Don't miss this, as I think you'll be hearing the name of this band more and more in the near future.

DROPSHARD are from North Italy, somewhere between Lago Di Como and Milan, to take it more precisely. Known for its mediterranean climate including lakes and mountains nearby, probably the best circumstances to bring out something extraordinary. I already came across their forerunner album 'Anywhere But Home' which I would describe as a heavy progressive and metal hybrid including influences from Dream Theater and Porcupine Tree. Especially the title track engaged me to write a review in due course ... where later I had to realize that they even had ventured on the task to remix their debut. Fantastico, amici! The sound is clearer, obviously better, just to mention the drum presence for example. Anyhow, don't want to open a competiton, as the focus is on 'Silk' here of course.

'Well done - you haven't moved an inch!' a young woman claims at then end of Seat - Yes and No! Okay, this will be a perfect description when it comes to that particular song on its own, which is an ambient spacey interlude. But nowhere near can't be assigned to the entire album! Where 'Anywhere But Home' offers way more metal elements, this one certainly goes towards an art rock and neo prog direction. At first let me say, Enrico Scanu's vocals are amazing me. On one side there's a little charming accent to consider, though furthermore his expressive style is really really fascinating. As I generally would agree with lovers of Italian bands and prog music who are looking forward to native lyrics ... sometimes it's also suitable to use the English language, and this, presented by Enrico, eventually offers an important DROPSHARD trademark.

That's the way it is. But maybe even this will change furthermore, who knows? Now let me say that 'Silk' is an amazing album, varied, the songs are emotional, entertaining, elaborated. Eyes is a mainstream oriented exemplar, akin to bands like Moongarden, Believe, Quidam. Featuring an intriguing guitar intro Tied Together comes in the same, more mellow outfit. 'Take off your white coat and let me see' ... ehhhh ... the nested Cell 342 appears to be my top favourite, simply a prog masterpiece as for my appreciation. And Enrico once moves entirely close to growling, only once. They are getting started with a nice piano/vocal duet which always gives me the shivers, yeah!. Featuring heavy riffing guitar the mood then suddenly changes. The engines are running now at full stream, the song evolves to a rollercoaster behaviour, plus spaced out interlude somewhere in between - this one makes my day!

As for the heavier parts implemented, also fans of Porcupine Tree, Riverside, Toxic Smile, to name a few, might have a lot of fun listening to this album. Two songs are reaching behind the ten minute border. The Endless Road is made of variation again, including transitions to mellow flute and acoustic guitar doninated parts, but also a fulminant powerful peak towards the end. Memento starts way more eastbound oriented, probably at Baikonor or so, when considering some Russian speech incorporated. An entertaining piece in any case. Sorry, I've only mentioned the singer yet, though all the involved musicians are having a horse in the race of course. Definitely a highlight in 2014. With 'Silk' DROPSHARD have dropped an almost perfect album to the table, which affects me much. 4.5 ruthless stars.

Formed in September 2007 by guitarist Sebastiano Benatti, bassist Alex Stucchi and drummer Tommaso Mangione, Dropshard set out to "dropping into unconventional music." Their debut "Anywhere But Home" managed to make a good breakthrough for the band. But with "Silk" the band is ready to open new horizons by showcasing a work of significant variety, innovation and passion.

"Insight" is a wonderfully inspiring and original way to to start. The instrumentation is a hypnotic and robust journey from a subtle arrangement to an enticing buildup that carries the same blithe spirit and dazzling timbres as the music of the mentioned heavyweights of the genre crossed with its contemporaries (Haken comes to mind).

"Eyes" ventures into a surprisingly different direction, with alt-rock tones and a pensive, spacey atmosphere. Enrico Scanu layers his vocals exquisitely, adding a bit more emotion to the playing patterns. His vocal style is reminiscent of Anathema's Vincent Cavanagh. "Cell 342" begins on a similarly quiet and reflective note that echoes Anathema influences once again, but it soon piles on the progressive rock virtuosity and madness with frantic drums and synths, and equally spastic guitar work showcasing how eccentric and ambitious Dropshard can be.

"Seat," "Pepetual Dream," and "Get Out and Run" form a batch of shorter tunes (all under three minutes), opening space for "The Endless Road," the first out of two songs that clock over ten minutes. It builds slowly from a short ambient part, over through the beautiful Fender Rhodes passage to a real progrocker, what turns to be one of the most multifaceted tracks here, revealing every side of Dropshard in one magnificent package. The other epic, "Memento" builds on atmospheric motifs constructed around various narrative parts.

I could go on and on about Dropshard, praising every moment of every song for being confident, enticing, adventurous and hearty. "Silk" is a record that exposes more and more brilliant nuances with each listen. It's a wise and tricky balance that allows the album to feel charmingly familiar yet also extremely valuable.

I have had this album "Anywhere But Home" in my possession for a long time after the artists kindly sent it to me, and it somehow ended up on the bottom of a huge pile of prog, so apologies for taking so long to review it! My first impression is that it was actually heavier than I anticipated. The album cover almost looked a bit folk prog, an impressionist painting depicting a couple of kids dancing away from each other, and I was in more of a mood for a heavier style. So I was delighted that at least there were some great metal riffs to lock onto and a very distinct sound like Riverside or Porcupine Tree. The first thing that grabbed me was the very accomplished guitar work of Sebastiano Benatti that dominates throughout. The lead vocals of Enrico Scanu are crystal clean and very easy on the ears, reaching high octaves and maintaining powerful strong melodies. He also plays some flute and acoustic guitar. On bass is Alex Stucchi, backed up by well-executed percussion by Tommaso Mangione. The Dream Theater sound alike sections are mostly due to massive keyboard runs by Tommaso Selleri. For a young band the sound is quite mature overall and the album is a solid debut for Dropshard.

The music is dynamic, a suite of songs that run together with a concept, presented in huge blasts of metal juxtaposed with ambient swathes of symphonic keyboards. There is certainly a heavy texture with chugging distorted guitars but the everpresent keyboards underneath are reminiscent of Riverside's style, along with the pristine vocals. There are no epics to speak of, the longest song being the innovative 8:17 minute Changing Colours, and most of the songs are driven by melody or mood changes rather than complex or diverse time sig changes. Lead breaks are always something to look forward to and this album is no exception, with some exceptional shredding from Benatti.

One of the best tracks is undoubtedly the aforementioned 8 minute song, that builds in intensity from ambience to downright fierce axe work; the finale especially crunches and gains tempo to one of the heavier moments on the album. There is also a terrific heavy interchange of guitar riffing in A Cold Morning, a track that is well worth checking out to taste what the band is capable of cranking out. The low dense guitar sound is akin to Opeth or Dream Theater, a darker sound but always kept in balance with the crystalline uplifting vocals. A New Beginning is another outstanding track with melodic metal, and an infectious riff that locks into your skull. The running time for the album is only 34 minutes although the 4 and a half minute bonus track Freedom Supermarket enhances the album, ending it with some very heavy shades of metal. This track has a powerful keyboard motif augmented by lashings of intense metal riffing. The track also features some high falsetto work from Scanu. Overall the debut for Dropshard is a promising start to another new prog metal band, offering nothing that might be considered new as such, but nevertheless delivering a rock-solid album of symphonic nuances and advanced metal phrases. 3 and a half stars easily and room for improvement with a follow up album that the prog community should look forward to.

Dropshard is a Milan based progressive metal/heavy rock band who have released an impressive debut album with "Anywhere But Home." The first band they reminded me of was fellow Italians Novembre whose "Materia" album also had a cloudy, grey sky melancholia which Dropshard also taps into. But it's a sonically lovely sadness when it comes. I think Riverside has to be an influence on these guys as well. The album's long suite is very guitar oriented with vocals and vocal harmonies that are often soothing to the music's heaviness (vocals are English btw). While the synths are often modern and atmospheric, even neo-proggish, what makes the experience for me are those little serene interludes that are reminiscent of Italian rock...the traditional piano, acoustic guitar, even a little bit of flute in there. The electric leads can be really soaring and emotional placing presence above any kind of shredding or bravado. The drumming rocks but is restrained enough to not take over the recording, something which spoils certain albums for me. My favorite moments come during the instrumental break of "A Cold Morning" featuring a lovely blending of the guitar solo with flute. "Anywhere But Home" is an engaging and recommended softer metal album which will please a wide variety of listeners. The debut also benefits from a 34 minute length which I love, most albums do not need to be 75 minutes long just for the hell of it. Kudos on the wonderful album cover art. A bonus track is also included. This would appear to be a band with good potential to go places compositionally, even commercially.

Italian act Dropshard has crafted a strong and elegant debut with "Anywhere but Home", a piece of progressive metal that should have a generally broad appeal. Moods and melodies are emphasized, the arrangements are dampened. and the compositions as such utilize elements from the art rock universe extensively. Well worth giving a spin, with fans of bands like Riverside and Sylvan a likely key audience.

The music on the album sits somewhere between progressive metal, neo-prog ( I especially hear nods toward the Polish scene, but Steve Hogarth-led Marillion is also an influence IMO) and progressive rock ( mainly mid to late seventies Genesis). Dropshard seamlessly blend their influences into a coherent style, that may not be revolutionizing, but certainly is intriguing. It´s obvious that all four musicians playing on the album are very skilled, and besides their considerable instrumental skills, I´m pretty impressed by the great harmony vocals on the album. Lead vocalist Enrico Scanu masters both soft mellow vocals and louder more powerful vocals too.

The 38:29 minute long album consists of 9 tracks. The first 8 tracks on the album are a concept piece ( or a suite) while the last track on the album called Freedom Supermarket is a stand alone piece. The songs are dynamic and explore both harder edged progressive metal riffing and more mellow progressive rock pieces. This makes for a very varied listen and at no point do the band fail to entertain.

The production is professional and fits the music.

Anywhere But Home didn´t impress me like I had hoped the first time I listened to the album, but upon repeated spins the album has grown on me and I´ve ended up really enjoying the album. A 3.5 star rating is deserved.