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Ah, my second Meshuggah review. Ok, in my opinion this is probabbly there most human album, the songs are structured more, some of thr riffs could be used by other bands...and it would be ok, and the vocals sound perfect, not to growly and a very lyrical way of using the medium of growling to express the lyrics of the songs. The lyrics are usually what Meshuggah always talk about, philosphy within ourself, using quite dark images in order to conjure pain within the human psyche:

1. Combustion - When I first heard this riff I said to myself, "Wow, a real riff". Yes this song is incredibly heavy and very headbangable (there other matherial makes headbanging very hard to do, headbanging within polyrthyms can cause. Very thrash like, perfect opener to a great album.

2. Electric Red - Very good, 8 strings and some polrythyms, very Byzantine, using them in a musical way, a trait Meshuggah usually forget.

3. Bleed - Ok, probabbly the heaviest thing ever created. Tomas' feet are in agony, the only points he can stop are in the slow dark sections, and the weird solo bits. That's probabbly the reason the song is called Bleed, cause that's what will happen to your feet if you play this song (or your ears if you listen to it) Great song, and very avant garde video, perfectly insane.

4. Lethargica - An album track really, some of these songs aren't the most memerable, kind of like somethign from Nothing, just a bit similar, but still a good song.

5. Obzen - Great riffage, short and sweet, but kinf of still to complicated...these guys really need to just right a song instead of a continous comfusing ryhthym, but if thats what you're into...it's great. (I'm probabbly contradiciting myself a bit...but meh...who cares.)

6. This Spiteful Snake - Good lyrics, very dark ,and great use of language. The music is good again, a bit chugga chugga, but meh.

7. Pineal Optic Glands- Reminds me of Shed from Catch 33, dark and disturbing. Very odd solo as well.

8. Pravus - Another memorable riff, something this album dosent have alot of, but great songs.

9. Dancers To A Discordant System - Best song in my opinion, closes the album great, especially the last stanza, very philosophical. This song is obviously about the absolute garbage that is played in todays popular music. Great ending, very creepy.

CONCLUSION - This is probabbly Meshuggahs most structured album, great skilled songs and it may be a but repetive, but this album does display some great normal guitar riffs, e.g. Combustion & Pravus. Meshuggah fans may not like it that much, but someone getting into them should buy this album.

When heavy prog meets classic.

When Tull meets classic.

When classic meets Italian prog.

Pick up one of your choice and be sure not to be far away from the content of this album.

I have never been over enthusiastic about the mix of an orchestra and rock artists (being prog or not). No that this one is bad but in general, the orchestra tends to have more of a leading role, which I don't like too much ("Cadenza"). On the other hand, the overture is quite interesting and should please any Tull fan thanks to a very similar flute play ("Allegro").

The same approach applies to "Shadows". After a mellow sung part, the tracks moves on towards a more rock angle and finishes with an homage to the guitar master: Jimi Hendrix. This track although not brilliant is another good moment from this album.

Hopes for great stuff reside in the epic "Improvvisazioni Registrate in Diretta" which means that this track is "an improvisation recorded live". No more, no less. This leads to a quite chaotic but fine intro. Some parts are again very much Tull esque which is of course not to annoy me. But the filiation is probably too obvious, hence derivative.

Another influence is the Heep during some vocalized parts. Again, I quite like these moments but what's the originality?

The good point is that the orchestra is not featured and that we have a full blown (heavy) prog song being played. Excellent organ work and drumming is quite effective as well. Still, I fully share the opinion of some fellow reviewers who believe that a six minutes drum solo on a studio album is probably not the most interesting way to promote your music.

My rating is more conservative than lots of five stars I've seen for this album. Three stars. A good album but nothing too innovative nor spectacular as far as I'm concerned.

In My Youth ... I Played Prog Rock!

Yes, not all of us had the pleasure of an untroubled youth spent with our favourite toys. Some of us had a merciless older brother that force-fed us on progressive rock from the tender age of 10. Well I'm deceiving you a bit; it wasn't 'force-feeding'. I was entirely fascinated and drank lavishly.

However, Hammill wasn't in my brothers collection, so Van Der Graaf would be the first band I 'discovered' myself as soon as I was old enough to be spending afternoons in libraries and second-hand stores. This album has been with me since I was 16 or something. Needless to say it was defining for my basic taste: progressive rock, but with a dark and harsh angle in it. No wonder I moved on to post-punk and metal later on.

In Camera continued the style and sound of the Silent Corner but has never convinced me equally. It is mostly brilliant but has moments that are too over the top and far-fetched. "Ferret and Featherbird" is a very experimental track that always intrigued me and "The Comet, the Course, the Tail" is a longstanding favourite. The remainder of the tracks goes from excellent to slightly annoying: "Tapeworm" never gelled with me and I don't think I've listened more then thrice beyond the 7 minute mark of "Gog Magog"

With his next album, Hammill would come back with an entirely stripped down version of his style. He had taken his pretentious and theatrical stand as far as he could with In Camera. Also on his solo albums of the late 70's, the experimental and keyboard driven songs were much more focussed and comprehensive.

Still this is an essential album for me and you also shouldn't miss the excellent peel sessions that have been added to the 2006 remaster.

I guess that the best decision for the band was taken after the release of this album: to call it quit.

I hardly could bear their AOR oriented music since Perry has been brought on board ("Infinity"). IMHHO, the music proposed since then is rather poor and inspiration very, very thin. What's weird is that from this very moment, the band will sell millions of albums and started a very successful commercial career.

This album is no worse than its predecessors; but it is no better either. Which means that the same sort of expectations are met: basic and radio friendly rock music of which prog is not even related by far (but "Journey" has been pretty consistent in achieving this result for quite a long time already).

A lot of AOR stuff like "Girl Can't Help It" or "Be Good to Yourself" which shows a definite Springsteen feel (same for the well named "Raised On The Radio"), some decent pop-rock with "Positive Touch" which features some nice sax, some very short and excellent guitar solo with "Suzanne" (but way too scarce on this album). Schon is also shining in the closing part of "Be Good To Yourself". It is for sure a great add-on when he is providing these killer guitar breaks.

Some sub-par Rod Stewart rock songs under the form of "Once You Love Somebody" which is best avoided for your own good even if an infectious guitar break also highlights this weak track ("I'll Be Alright?" is a carbon copy). There are obviously the syrupy ballads as well ("Happy To Give", "The Eyes Of A Woman" as well as the closing track).

In all, this album is totally dispensable and best avoided for prog ears. You have been warned already several times about this band: first three albums good to very good and that's it.

One little star.

Maudlin of the well is a band that ive know about since 2000 but i never quite had the patience to listen to a full album. This was the time to do it, as ive had heard wonders of "Part The Second", but i must say i felt dissapointed with the hype, maybe its because i'm not to keen on post rock/experimental type of music but i think every genre has its great bands and albums ... this particular one didnt do much for me, ive heard it about 10 times and although from the beginning ive felt the potential of the album it never quite developed to the level i thought it would reach, there are some nice elements and song parts but as with a lot of postrock bands it all gets drowned in a sea of ambient and instrumental boring passages that seem to go nowhere, there are some piano parts that i really like, some good orchestrated stuff and some great dissonant riffs (clover garland island has a great intro) ... but as a whole it felt duct taped in some parts for the sake of the whole "lets be experimental and do weird stuff that doesnt make sense" vibe. Overall it was an album that i enjoyed but not too much.

Antonio Bartoccetti and Doris Norton started their long artistic partnership at the end of the sixties as Jacula and are still active today as Antonius Rex. Their last album, "Per Viam", was released in 2009 by the independent label Black Widow. It comes out with a nice three folds digipack packaging and a suggestive art cover...

The music every now and again could remind of Goblin or Mike Oldfield and flows away like the soundtrack of a horror movie or a thriller. Actually, tracks like "Micro Demons", "Per Viam", "Spectra" and "Angels & Demons" could be a perfect musical background for the reading of a Dan Brown's novel... Liturgical chants, gothic organ and piano passages are intertwined with modern sounds and distorted guitars... During the video of "Angels & Demons" compares even the word illuminati! You can find it on Youtube, while on the album as extra track CD-ROM VIDEO there's the video of "Micro Demons"...

In "Woman Of The King" there are some Celtic influences that remind me of Alan Stivell's album "The Mist Of Avalon". "UFDEM" is an old piece of Jacula dressed up in modern an more aggressive sounds but the voice of Doris Norton is still charming while the final "Antonius Rex Prophecy" is a long track featuring the recitative vocals of Antonio Bartoccetti and a slow "atmospheric" pace.

On the whole a good album, even if it's not really challenging and, at length, a little bit kitsch. In nomine Christi , amen.

I expected some high brow post rock album when I grabbed this album from a record shop before PA even was conceived.

What I got was a progressive metal album with strong references to Dream Theater. The guitars and the keyboards is very much down the Dream Theater alley. Dali's Dilemma is not Dream Theater copies though because their album was recorded and released before Dream Theater developed into this direction you find on this album.The songs also have some added influences from Fates Warning and Symphony X. I am not sure about Rush though. In any case; this album is a middle of the road progressive metal album.

The songs are decent, but nothing more than that. I find the guitars and keyboards pretty attractive and this is the main good point for me. My gripes is the pretty weak vocals and the lack of any memorable tracks. This is a good, but highly forgetable album in my view. I give it three stars because the musicianship is good and there is no serious flaws with this album.

3 stars

— First review of this album —

Lego is the fourth full-length studio album by Italian technical/ progressive death metal act Sadist. Lego is widely considered the black sheep of the family ( read: The discography) though and didn´t bring much praises to the band when it was released in 2000. Neither from fans nor critics. After a couple of very interesting technical/ progressive death metal albums in Tribe (1996) and Crust (1997) ( I personally find Tribe to be a seminal album in the tech/ extreme genre), Sadist really took a wrong-turn deserting their technical/ progressive death metal roots in favour of a more contemporary NU- metal style. The album was recorded at the group´s own studio Nadir Recording and while earlier albums ( probably because of limited studio time) clocked in around the 40 minute mark Lego is a 69:19 minute long affair. The album is produced by the band themselves.

While the music still has few progressive elements it´s obvious that Sadist wanted to try something very different on Lego. There´s nothing wrong with the musicianship or the production on the album but the music is not very interesting IMO. If you enjoy something that sounds like a bad version of Korn meets P.O.D. there´s a chance you might enjoy this, but personally this genre does not appeal much to me and 69:19 minutes of this is close to doing me in if I have to be honest. It´s not all bad though and there are some ideas and sections on the album that does sound powerful and exciting but they are few and far between. I find it rather sad that an innovative and IMO groundbreaking act like Sadist ended up making an album like this. It would also have serious consequences for the band as they broke up shortly after the release of the album. Sadist returned with their self-titled fifth album in 2007 where the band redeemed themselves considerably. This one will be a doubtful purchase even for the fans. 2 stars are all I can give.

It was the free mp3 of 'Hive Mind/Claws of a Crayfish" off of his website that made me feel it was very important that I begin exploring Phideaux's music by acquiring his latest album.

As is normal for me, I spent my first bit of time looking at the packaging, enjoying the many images of dormouse fighting crayfish within the liner notes. It also piqued my curiosity - why are they fighting? What is this album about? Either way, I knew I was going to have a lot of fun following the lyrics as I listened to this album.

Since the first time I listened to it, I have been unable to stop (similar to how Moon Safari's Blomljud effected me). While not as good as Blomljud overall, this album is definitely up there, and currently my favorite release so far this year (although I have a fair amount of listening to do still).

The CD is split into three sections. The name of each section gives hints as to what the album is about.

Dormouse Ensnared starts off with a very nice sounding guitar bit, and leads into four songs that are hard to separate from one another. They are replete with catchy vocals, melodic instrumentation, and excellent drumming. And there are female vocals! I think that, with so many prog bands (almost all actually) having only male vocalists, this album having female vocals gives it a unique texture. In total, there are three female singers on this album, and multiple male vocalists, giving the vocals a very varied feel. I really do appreciate bands like this, that take care to give their vocals a lot of feel.

The four continuous tracks are quite wonderful; the second half of Waiting for the Axe to Fall is an excellent instrumental section with truly interesting drumming that leads beautifully into the piano intro of Hive Mind (which I find impossible to separate from the next song, Claws of a Crayfish; not just because I originally heard them both together, but because they actually share musical themes). The lyrics are also interesting; my favorite line from this section is "You and I were talking, as if we were alive." Such a nice, thoughtful lyric.

The second part of the album also contains a group of songs that flow together like a single song, but prior to that it has a couple songs that stand out as individual songs a bit more. These are short and pleasant, but it is with Gift of the Flame that this section really kicks off. Once again, Phideaux is combining interesting lyrics, great music, vocals, and interesting drumming to really build a nice atmosphere of music. This leads into the faery-tale-esque "Interview with a Dormouse", a simple acoustic part with a theme that will be repeated at the closing of the album to great effect.

Of course, next is Thermonuclear Cheese, perhaps one of the most interestingly titled tracks on the album. It was also available for download on the website (with The Search for Terrestrial Life and Fistful of Fortitude in the same mp3). It's pretty much a fun little instrumental bit that leads into what I feel to be a really atmospheric song (The Search for Terrestrial Life), where a female singer explains the Cambrian era. It always brings me straight into the depths of the ocean, watching all these hundreds of thousands of life forms blinking in and out of existence. Truly magical music.

The end of the album features the two longest individual songs: Love Theme From "Number Seven", an excellent instrumental piece, and Storia Senti, which is also mostly instrumental. While Storia Senti is not as interesting musically as the prior instrumental sections, it is still an excellent piece of music.

Infinite Supply probably gets my vote for weakest track on the album, although on this album that still makes it a good listen. Dormouse - An End reprises the theme from Interview with a Dormouse, although it is a bit more bleak in outlook. Definitely a solid way to end the album.

This is Arjen Lucassen's latest project called GUILT MACHINE.He's enlisted Lori Linstruth on lead guitar,Chris Maitland on drums and Jasper Steverlinck on vocals.This is supposed to be a permanent band and not a "one off" side project. I have to admit to not being an AYREON fan at all.That project for me is like listening to a prog musical,and i hate musicals.No matter how good the vocals and instrumental work is, and who the guests are, to my ears it's like listening to a musical.Did i mention i hate musicals.Anyway the only side project that Arjen has been involved in that i've liked is STREAM OF PASSION's debut.It sounded nothing like AYREON to me unlike STAR ONE or GUILT MACHINE both of which bring AYREON to mind too often for my tastes. The vocalist here can really sing.He really reminds me of MUSE's singer especially when he "lets go".Did i mention i'm not a fan of MUSE's singer? I think you know where this is going.Which is a shame because i love how atmospheric this album is. It's pretty cool how each song opens with samples of people speaking.These were submitted by fans all over the world in various languages speaking their thoughts on guilt,regret,life,death and human nature. "Twisted Coil" opens with words in Dutch(female) then German(male) as drums and synths create atmosphere.Vocals are reserved 1 1/2 minutes in then we get those backing vocals that bring AYREON to mind right away.They return later as well.Some cello in this one too.A Polish female vocal sample arrives 3 1/2 minutes in.Jasper sings with passion a minute later.The song kicks in after 5 1/2 minutes with riffs.Processed vocals follow.It settles with violin before 9 1/2 minutes.A calm with follows before it kicks back in. "Leland Street" opens with atmosphere as female Chinese words then male French spoken words come in.It turns spacey reminding me of PORCUPINE TREE.Reserved vocals 1 1/2 minutes in.It kicks in and contrasts continue. "Green And Cream" opens with Swedish then Japanese spoken words both male.Cool sound right here with drums and keyboards.Vocals after 1 1/2 minutes.It sounds like AYREON vocally before 4 1/2 minutes then it kicks in heavier.A change after 5 minutes with processed vocals and Arjen's vocals.Not a fan of this section.I do like the guitar before 8 minutes and the atmosphere that follows.Spanish spoken words before 9 minutes.More AYREON-like vocals follow. "Season Of Denial" opens with Finnish then Bulgarian spoken words.Sounds like mellotron and a relaxing melody.Vocals and backing vocals join in.Violins here and acoustic guitar.Some mandolin too.It turns heavy before 5 minutes.Some great vocals from Jasper 8 minutes in heaviness follows. "Over" opens with Norwegian then Russian spoken words as a beat and keys follow.Vocals around a minute.They do get passionate.Organ comes and goes.Guitar solo before 3 1/2 minutes.The vocals shine later. "Perfection?" opens with spoken Portugese then Hungarian words.As usual we get this beat with atmosphere.The vocal style here really reminds me of Tim Bowness from NO-MAN.It kicks in before 4 1/2 minutes.Settles again before 6 minutes with those Bowness styled vocals.A nice guitar solo follows.Spoken Italian words end it. Forgive me if the languages of the messages are wrong. I really think this is going to get some high marks.It's modern sounding with atmosphere and a vocalist most will love.