THE DAYS THE CLOCK STOPPED

This is the latest album of singer, producer, and songwriter Tom de Wit. If on his previous releases the story of his music was centered around fictional characters, this time the title refers to his own severe bowel disease that he suffers 11 years ago, and where he almost felt like dying. So the music on this new album has an emotional charge that you can hear listening to the whole 74 minutes. The music can be described as prog metal that is atmospheric and heavy with plenty of tempo changes, always intense and with some symphonic flourishes. The vocals are all over the place with female and male clean vocals and some death vocals as well. The addition of a 9 piece choir gives another dimension to the music. Tom has really succeeded to create some great arrangements with this choir, some strings that back up the heavy guitar riffs. On this album, I did hear more piano than keyboards and the music strength relies on the way Tom has built the melody on an emotional crescendo that keeps your attention throughout this whole 70 minutes album. I couldn't stop thinking about the band Riverside listening to the calm passages in the music, at the point that I thought that the vocalist of Riverside was actually signing, but the music is different and more chaotic and extreme than Riverside when it gets at a faster pace with more extreme guitar riff. There are some grandiloquent guitar solos that match the giant amount of vocals work done here. So the wait to hear this new album was worth it because Tom felt he was not ready, but now we can enjoy the result.