GAME ON!

I'm not sure why the Vangough selected yours truly to review one of their albums, for I am not exactly a notorious progmetal fan, and their second album is certainly not going to changes things, despite a bunch of indisputable qualities, the first of which is escaping the ultra-cliché of having some kind of howling pipe belter (belcher?) damaging your eardrums without some heavy financial compensations. The group is mostly a duo consisting of multi-instrumentalist Withrow and drummer Lopez, and getting some help for bass and keys from two buddies. The album's concept (I think anyway) is a bunch of instrumental pieces that could be used for some videogames and the music is hardly noisy or offensive, but rather like what you'd expect from Satriani or some other shredder in vogue from the mid-80's until the turn of the millennium.

Indeed, all of the tracks qualify as "metal" and of "prog", but a gentle kind of alloy, not one that cuts, hurts gags, or injures any part of the brains. There are even some quieter classical music moments like the five-parts Simon's Revenge, providing some drama, but in the absence of the written-for image, it's a little lost on this confused soul. As you'll easily guess, the guitar is not just prevalent, it's totally dominant throughout the length of the album, the keyboards being limited to a "faire-valoir" role. Game On is a fairly even album, with no stand-out tracks, but no duds or stinkers either, thus rendering it difficult to know one track from the other and having to refer to the CD deck's display to know how much more you'll have to endure of it. As I pointed out above, Joe Satriani's guitars are the first thoughts that springs to my mind, and in itself, it's not that bad a thing, but I'd love to have heard something more than just that.

I'll finish this review being actually glad that it gives you the "game over" warning sign, which might be a little easy a pun, but merciful for my sanity, because the incessant bombardment and repetition of the same kind of music is insufferable, even if none of that music is untolerable. Best thing is to listen to this album in small homeopathic doses, two or three tracks at the time, to avoid overdoses. Surely not essential (even for progmetal in this reviewer's book), but not bad either, but not sure it really fully deserves the third star I'm awarding it.