Adagio - Underworld
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Recommendations/Featured albums
Forum Description: Make or seek recommendations and discuss specific prog albums
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7582
Printed Date: April 18 2024 at 09:41
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Topic: Adagio - Underworld
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Subject: Adagio - Underworld
Date Posted: June 15 2005 at 13:42
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Hoping that this thread isn't moved to non-prog ... here's my question about the PROGRESSIVE band Adagio: What do you guys think about Adagio, in particular their album Underworld? http://www.adagio-online.com/ - http://www.adagio-online.com http://www.adagio-online.com/_mp3/nextpro.mp3 - www.adagio-online.com/_mp3/nextpro.mp3 any thoughts, comments? ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Replies:
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 17 2005 at 13:28
no thoughts, no comments ... you don't know what you're missing ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: Manunkind
Date Posted: June 17 2005 at 17:23
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Thanks for the link! Beautiful stuff, tons of melody and it's got that 'colour' I love, if you know what I'm talking about... ------------- "In war there is no time to teach or learn Zen. Carry a strong stick. Bash your attackers." - Zen Master Ikkyu Sojun |
Posted By: Man Overboard
Date Posted: June 23 2005 at 19:05
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Adagio kicks ass. My first experience with them was their
instrumental cover of Immigrant Song, VERY much showcasing their
immense arrangement and instrumental skills... The sample here is just GREAT. ------------- https://soundcloud.com/erin-susan-jennings" rel="nofollow - Bedroom guitarist". Composer, Arranger, Producer. Perfection may not exist, but I may still choose to serve Perfection. Commissions considered. |
Posted By: King of Loss
Date Posted: June 23 2005 at 19:17
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They are not that bad, except I must say kinda generic though..... |
Posted By: nacho
Date Posted: June 23 2005 at 19:36
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I like them: prog metal close to its best... but still not there. I like Underworld (never heard Sanctus Ignis) and my only real complain is that I don't like David Readman's voice too much... Anyway, I think it's rather pompous to state in the booklet: Inspiration for this album: W.A. Mozart, Kriztof Penderecki, Witold Lutoslawski, Bela Bartok (see: he's prog!!!), Arnold Shoenberg (sic), Gyorgy Ligeti, Erik Satie, Maestro John Williams, Elliot Goldenthal, Vladimir Horowitz, Arcadi Volodos, Dimmu Borgir ( Yes, everything included in brackets was added by me...
------------- Eppur si muove |
), Cacophony (
), Derek Taylor.Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 02:07
I'm not sure what you mean by generic, but it's true that they're somewhat puristic. They fuse classical music and metal and don't have as many jazz/rock/pop/whatever influences as other bands. A LITTLE bit like Symphony X. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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King of Loss wrote:Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 02:16
That's funny, because I think that one of their biggest advantages is (was) that voice ... a matter of taste, really. I wouldn't call it "pompous" ... I'm not a very versed piano player, but I imagine that "inspiration" in this case means includings some parts from their parts in the interludes they play, intros and outros etc. Like Symphony X did on "V: The New Methology Suite": Lacrimosa is actually a requiem by Mozart. Some time ago I heard it on television during the Pope's burial ceremony and was amazed ("Hmm, they play Symphony X at the Pope's funeral ... have I been missing something?"). Dimmu Borgir: Not my cup of tea - probably, I know very little about them Cacophony: What's bad about them? Jason Becker and Marty Friedman are excellent guitarists. I highly recommend Marty Friedman's Music For Speeding, a metal fusion album a little bit like Derek Sherinian's Black Utopia, bit more diverse and biased towards guitar, of course. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: nacho
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 03:22
Yep, I guess it's taste, but still I don't like his timber... Of course, Symphony's X Lacrimosa is taken from Mozart's Requiem (the Mozart's Requiem). Lacrimosa is a part of the Catholic funeral liturgy, so you will actually find a Lacrimosa in many of the classical Requiem Masses out there. As an addition, the tune heard in the Prelude, from the same album, is taken from the Dies Irae of Verdi's Requiem. I was actually quite angry to see that they didn't state that these tunes are ripped off in any part of the album. I guess these tunes are so well known that they thought it wasn't needed, but see, you thought they were playing Symphony X at the pope's funeral As for Cacophony, I don't know, I heard that Metal Symphony (or something like that) some time ago and all I could think was "just a couple of guitar w**kers". But maybe I wasn't paying too much attention.
------------- Eppur si muove |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 04:32
You're right, they should have mentioned it, if only for people like me who don't know that many classical pieces. But I DID notice the Holst references in Divine Wings ... that's at least a start, isn't it? ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: nacho
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 05:32
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Not bad... If you are interested in listening to the original classical pieces ripped off by SX you can PM me an email address and I cand send you the mp3s. Cheers! ------------- Eppur si muove |
Posted By: King of Loss
Date Posted: June 24 2005 at 17:50
But Symphony X is much better, even though Symphony X does try to copy bands' sounds quite often... V is still better than the Underworld. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: June 25 2005 at 09:12
It took me a while to think it over ... I have to disagree. I've listened to both albums a GREAT DEAL, and I honestly can't decide which is better. V contains some stellar songs, like Egypt, Fallen, Evolution, The Mythology suite. But if you look at it as a work of art, I prefer Adagio. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: TheProgtologist
Date Posted: June 27 2005 at 23:27
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After listening to the MP3s I went out and was able to find Sanctus Ignis but not Underworld.Good stuff man,right up my alley.Thanks for another good recommendation Mike -------------  |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 12:12
Now (6 months later) ... what I wrote seems not really fair for V, which is a masterpiece. Adagio - Underworld is equally good IMO, and I listen to it maybe a tiny bit more than Symphony X - V. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 12:15
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I think they kick some butt!!!- GREAT prog metal |
Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 12:23
| I pretty sure I'm with King- I prefer Symphony X- but Adagio is still awesome- anyword on a follow up album to Underworld? |
Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 12:27
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Nevermind- new album in December- looks cool! Even though the realease is in Japan- why???????? |
Posted By: Xymphony
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 13:19
Must be marketing strategy, too bad for us |
Posted By: ulver982
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 13:39
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I picked up Underworld about a year ago..and I dunno, there are a few songs on the album I really like, but other than that, I never felt like listening to the album over and over again. It's a good album, but not essential, IMO. ------------- Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement, are roads of genius. Silence is the music of the future. |
Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 13:40
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When I come to think of it- I feel the same way- I have probably listened to it 10 times- and Ive had it for a while. Sym X has better replay value. |
Posted By: Xymphony
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 14:45
Agreed... |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 17:55
They also have many more albums. Compare the first two albums of Adagio and Symphony X ... ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: Xymphony
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 22:00
| Of course, Forte is still a young guy i think, and very promising. (how old is he, actually? )I compared only the albums ;) Future will show what Adagio can make, and i won't be offended if they make better albums than Symphony X. Better is better :D |
Posted By: Ty1020
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 22:09
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I'm not a huge fan of the band, but they definitely have
potential. I love some of their stuff, but a lot of their songs also
bore me. They're obviously extremely talented, Forte in particular, but
I'm hoping to see some improvement in their songwriting before I can
call them truly great. One thing I really like about them, though, is that they're another band who is bridging the gap between metal and prog. Basically all of my friends who listen to metal (some exclusively) love Adagio, so if nothing else, they're helping to expose new fans to the world of prog. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Ty1020/"> 
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Posted By: tardis
Date Posted: November 24 2005 at 23:56
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I bought Underworld based on one song I'd heard, which was quite a good song, but I tend to agree that I don't find myself needing to repeatedly listen to it. Great stuff though, be interesting to hear some more of their hybrid metal/prog...I especially like the drum beats. Reminds me of another band, darn I forget their name...it'll come to me...just wait...ah...on the tip of my tongue!...damn, I just had it!...
Alogia! Some of their drum beats remind me of Alogia...great band! First discovered them through ProgArchives... |
Posted By: Petra
Date Posted: November 25 2005 at 17:35
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I really like Adagio, i have Underworld and Sanctus Ignis The title track Underworld is out of this world, I adore that really long wonderfully dramatic intro! Oh wow! talking of dramatic intro's they also have an unforgettable intro on the track Introitus/solvet Saeclum in Fadilla too. ------------- Don't hate me I'm not special like you |
Posted By: R_DeNIRO
Date Posted: November 25 2005 at 18:04
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The firts five tracks of Underworld are killer, great great prog metal (great great keyboards). But then, unfortunatly, the album begin to sink slowly. These five tracks are in the same quality or better than the best Symphony X stuff. PD: (Next Profundis is an eargasm)
------------- We were always be much human than we whish to be. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: November 25 2005 at 18:17
^  the first 5 songs = 43 minutes ... the better part of the album. I like the other 3 songs no less than the first 5. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: Certif1ed
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 03:50
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The intro is very slick, but not really compelling or unpredicatable in any way. The piano solo part is laughably poor - very quick arpeggio motifs based around very simple and slow-shifting harmony. The fast playing is a classic case of Emporer's new clothes. The vocals are awful to my ears - but the ambience is a nice power metal ambience - enhanced nicely by the bells, and the actual sound of the piano adds a good texture. The playing is directionless and annoying though - just fast stuff intended to impress with no substance. Where the chords slow down, they're not very inspired. The riffing is par for the course - tight as a gnat's chuff, with the bass generally slavishly following the guitar, and the drums practically likewise. The slow guitar solo that follow is nice and melodic - but it's all NWOBHM stuff. Getting the piano to follow the next riff adds a nice texture, but textural experimentation doesn't lift this into prog rock territory, and neither do odd time signatures - it's just power metal with nice textures and odd time sigs - which is part of what power metal has always been about. The fast guitar solo is very well exectued - as they all are these days. The slow piano section is quite annoying - all of the piano borrows heavily from Beethoven, with Wagnerian dischords that are probably more inspired by ELP than the former. This might seem proggy, but it's watered-down Beethoven - the great man would never have clung on for dear life to the basic harmonic shifts, he'd have been rattling the key signatures all over the place in order to set up some chaos to resolve. That's the main problem with this type of music as a whole - the structuring is bad, so dramatic tension doesn't really exist or, more importantly, last. Sure the riffs and individual sections contain drama of their own, but none contribute to the big picture - it's more about a series of "hits" rather than a continuous developing whole - more closely related to pop music than you might think. "Solvet Saeclum in Favila" (oddly, the second line of the "Dies Irae" in the standard Requiem mass), has a kind of Requiem feel to it but only because it shamelessly plunders Verdi's monumental Dies Irae. This shifts around far too often to carry the weight of a piece about the end of time and judgement day - which is a great pity, as the textures are suitably dark. It's completely ruined by those damned vocals SKIP ...and it all becomes predictable... a bit of piano, some wooey effects, an organ, the pounding Helloween style riffs and drums... nice enough, but it's been done to death, guys. If I wanted to listen to "Ride the Sky", I'd pull out my copy of "Walls of Jericho". A touch of Satriani in the guitar solo is nice - but the melody of the solo bears no or little relation to the developing theme. Again, we have a pastiche of ideas rather than a developing whole - although this is better than the preceeding material and keeps the underlying material related at least. Around 2:50, I can hardly tell Adagio apart from any other prog metal band on the planet. It's all very generic stuff, only the piano giving any clues as to the band's identity. Texturally, the intro to "From My Sleep" holds promise - but it doesn't last long enough. The "grindcore" section is quite a surprise, but then it's business as usual. It all rolls by without any eyelids being batted - nothing unexpected that lifts it out of the general metal-type style.
This is all I have of the album - but I bet I could predict most of the rest of it. It sounds OK - quite good in some places, but generally comes across as a bit of a dirge to my ears.
The textures may be nice - but there are very, very few real changes in texture - by which I mean that it's either full-on guitarring, with heavy, distorted riffs, or keyboard-drenched quiet bits with Satch-style soloing - hey, I've got "Surfing With the Alien". So no real progressiveness in texture. Form tends to be standard rock song form with extended bridges and instrumental interludes - classic hard rock structuring. So no progressiveness in form. Melodies are very generic power metal melodies - largely safe scales with the odd jump and held note. So no progressiveness in melody. Rhythmically, there's everything you'd expect from bands that call themselves Prog Metal - mostly repetitive riffs, but broken up with wearying sections in over-elaborate time signatures that all end up sounding the same because these are repeated to death - no improvisation or spontaneity is possible with this style. It all sounds meticulously worked out rather than spontaneous. So no progresssiveness in rhythm - everyone does this these days. That leaves Harmony. Bog standard rock harmonic progressions, Tritones and standard scales in traditional modes with laboured dischords. 'nuff said
At least you can't say I didn't give it a chance |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 05:03
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^ Couldn't your post be summarized by "I don't like it"? Think about it - do these musicians claim to be totally original? Is writing a prog (metal) album about "how do I avoid anything that's ever been done before"? And I do find it odd that you praise the Muse keyboardist for toying with classical influences, and here you totally bash Richard Andersson ... who has NOTHING TO PROVE to anyone about his skills.
And finally: May I remind you that all western music is basically one big rip off, as they're all using the same 12 notes (+ the blue notes, naturally)?
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: erlenst
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 05:27
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most...terrible...drum sound...ever! |
Posted By: Certif1ed
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 07:40
I could say "I don't like it", but that wouldn't be true - it's OK. Anyway, that blunt statement would raise the question "Why?" - which I pre-empted. You sent the music to me, so I reviewed it as I would any piece of Prog. If it's not Prog, why is it in the archives? Re: Piano playing; Matt Bellamy is not pretending to be Beethoven, and he invents stuff in the style of Rachmaninov - OK, Renaissance did it too, but Bellamy has a flair and character about his playing which rises above ability. It's an integral part of the music - not pure prog rock, but nevertheless, marks the music out distinctively - using technical skills to create something that suits the music. Richard Andersson seems to be trying to prove something - he's using a grossly simplified Beethoven style, yet decorating it with very fast flourishes - using a technical ability to compensate for lack of musical ability. It stands out in an uncomfortable way - it doesn't always blend with the music, and it doesn't arise from thematic material. Sure, you can write little chunks of music that are entirely unrelated and gaffer tape them together - but that is not a coherent way of writing a complete piece! It's entirely different to writing the piece, then having a few ideas later and moulding them into the existing work, and it's entirely obvious which approach is taken, when there is no noticeable moulding.
To continue your argument to its logical conclusion, if I gave a set of instruments to a whoop of baboons, then I should be considering the output to be fine art - who am I to judge?
Who am I? Just someone with as much right to post an opinion - especially when invited (may I remind you) - as anyone else. Stuff jumps out at me as blatantly obvious based on my (limited) experiences - if you think my opinion is wrong, that's your problem, and that's what discussions are for. Hence this forum.
I know what I like, and I like what I know.
Oh, and on the notes thing, there are actually 88 on a grand piano, if my memory serves me correctly. You then need to consider that exponentially, as many notes can be played siimultaneously. You then need to consider them timbrally - the same note groupings played on different instruments sound very different. You then need to consider the rhythm - a slight alteration in rhythm can modify a melody almost beyond recognition. Then consider the entire form of a piece - that's a heck of a lot of notes. More than 12, unless you're thinking of excecssive minimalism...
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Posted By: BleedingGum
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 16:13
Nope... not me....  ------------- ...this is called....BleedingGum ... ! |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 16:40
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:
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Posted By: King of Loss
Date Posted: December 01 2005 at 16:48
Whatever man |