THE DREAMER'S PARADOX

About a year after putting out Anamolous Material, JT BRUCE returns with his second album, The Dreamer's Paradox. This album is a much more mature effort, is a step forward from Anomalous Material. Whereas the debut was essentially a collection of stand-alone songs, The Dreamer's Paradox contains a concept that unifies the songs together with recurring musical themes and fairly abstract song titles. The songs here are much longer also, and are a bit heavier, but there is a large amount of quiet and soft spots, and production has improved a bit.

''The Dreamer's Overture'' sets the stage for the album, introducing many of the themes that are to be revisited throughout the duration of the album. This song is a good rocker, with great guitarwork from BRUCE, and the keys creating a dense backdrop. ''Plunge Into Hyperreality'' is my favorite track off of the album, with the wonderful Eastern-influenced acoustic guitar intro amid ominous keyboards, and continues as a fast-paced rocker. On the contrary, ''The Verge of Illusory Twilight'' is mainly a ballad, rarely transcending into heavier realms for the 8 ¾ it runs for. Also, the ''epic'' of the album is quite an interesting ''composition''. ''Hypnic Jerk'' is essentially a piece of musique concrète in the vein of ''Revolution 9'' by the Beatles, and ''9:28 AM'' by Queensrÿche. The song contains many sound samples, mainly heavily altered clips from the album. After the song is more than halfway through, a spoken word segment begins that explains the concept of dreams. A weird, but somehow, a very enjoyable track.

In the end, The Dreamer's Paradox is a very good album; much better than the well-done Anomalous Material. Although, a few complaints of mine are that there are a few too many soft spots in the album, and that the musical themes being revisited in the album might be revisited a bit too much. But, despite that, The Dreamer's Paradox is a solid effort from JT BRUCE, and should not be missed.