TERRAFORM

This album begins with some really interesting keyboard sounds, and you (or I did anyway) fill with hope in wait of a masterpiece. But before too long there a long metal riff that keeps repeating for one-minute and those hopes start to fade. This is the beginning of the album 'Terraform' by Jupiter Society. However, the first track is quite good.

Forget Phil Spector. Even, forget Tony Banks and ELP and all those other people famous for a 'Big Sound', these guys are the masters of the 'Big Sound'. In the first few tracks they add layer upon layer of deep, distorted guitars, backing vocals and keyboards that add an 'ethereal' flavour to the music, in the truest sense of the word, and of-course a big-echoey production. The lyrics are dark, about a spiritual crisis, probably about struggling with Christianity and beliefs. The feeling is dark and heavy, but not bad. The lead vocals are very passionate and accomplished. On one song he holds a high note for quite a long time.

The first few songs blend these elements well, but I honestly think these guys should do two things: a) Get away from metal; the strong, loud, heavy, highly-distorted, deep, resonating guitars dominate this thing, and often overwhelm the music and the other elements of their sound. b) throw in a change of pace or something, please! From beginning to end of this album, which is 54 minutes long, every song has exactly the same sound, same arranegments, same tone, same feeling, etc. They don't vary the formula from beginning to end, and after a while the album just drags. As the album closes, the angst in the singing, the monotonous distortion and the lack of any change in the dynamic of the sound really makes it an end that the listener is looking forward too.(well, that's me personally, I've never heard it through another person's ears, or brain for that matter).

Mate, why don't they just throw in a couple of acoustic songs or throw in some unusual instrument, or one up or two uptempo songs or something. Something to keep things interesting for the duration of the album.

As things stand, it is a fairly solid release. I like the eccentric vocal stylings, the innovative production and that eerie atmosphere they imbue the album with, but ultimately it falls victim to being narrow-focused. That said, if you like the band Ayreon, I would highly recommend this, as it seems to be very similar to their output. Anyway this is only their second album, maybe their next one can be even better. We all have to start somewhere.

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