FORGET THE COLOURS

this is by far the weirdest prog metal album of all time. The vocalist screams and wails until I go insane. Rhythmically complex, heavy, incredibly tight, this takes prog metal into the metal equivalent level of bands such as Henry Cow and Thinking Plague.

They may as well name it "Forget the Music". It would describe this opus in more appropriate way. Garden Wall is (or better to say - was?) one of my favorite bands. Their 4 previous works (especially 2nd-"Path Of Dreams") were excellent albums full of fresh ideas, charming melodies and complex structures. Just a week ago I finally got my hands on this long awaited fifth album, - and what a disappointment. It turned out to be a terrible mixture of "avant-avant-garde" (by its utter inaccessibility) and straight thresh-metal (by dirty sounding noisy guitar riffs and stupid drumming), leave alone the vocal, which is awful. After first 10 mins listening I even thought that I got a wrong band - kind of namesake. To me it sounds like guys totally run out of ideas and started to "explore new musical grounds", which is bad idea anyway, as there is nothing new actually to explore, and all those so called "experiments" means nothing more than lack of creativity, fantasy and musical ideas. This particular album does not deserve even one star, and my copy went straight to the bin, however I am giving it one star with this review just in big respect towards their previous works. I still hope that Alessandro Seravalle and Garden Wall will let us put this one down to experience and will be back to their normal great music with album no.6. But we shall see.

I think we need to get some "Tech / Extreme Prog Metal" fans to start reviewing GARDEN WALL albums to get the ratings up. I would describe their sound as a blend of IN THE WOODS..., ZERO HOUR & PSYCHOTIC WALTZ. The vocals are an acquired taste and can be very theatrical. Complex, experimental and aggressive is the order of the day with a vocalist who likes to spit out the words. Man this is good though. I'm so impressed with the arrangements and the instrumenatal work of this band. They're very talented and seem to be blazing their own unique path. By the way they thank fellow Italian Metal band PATHOSRAY in the liner notes.

"Lead" opens with sounds that you would probably hear in a horror movie. You know something is there in the dark but you don't know what it is. It kicks in after 1 1/2 minutes.Theatrical vocals a minute later. This is chaotic and loud. It settles before 4 1/2 minutes.The guitar is fairly melodic, almost soaring after 5 minutes. Vocals come in and change the mood quickly as he spits out his venom. It's almost dreamy before 7 1/2 minutes ! Sounds like mellotron. Great sound with guitar after 8 1/2 minutes. When it settles it reminds me of KAYO DOT. "Hatred" opens with whispered vocals, violin and some dark atmosphere. The tempo picks up and check out the doom-like guitars after 2 1/2 minutes. It settles again before 4 1/2 minutes to an eerie calm. Contrasts continue. Violin is back.

"Anniversary" has a good drum intro as vocals and an abrasive sound come in. The tempo continues to change. Nice deep bass before 2 minutes and the guitar joins in. Vocals are back after 3 minutes and they become theatrical a minute later. A beautiful soundscape comes in before 6 minutes. Guitar comes in grinding away with huge bass lines a minute later. Riffs follow with piano to end it. "Bisturi (Including Coda : Withered Rose)" hits the ground running. This is heavy with vocals. A psychedelic calm is brief. The spoken words 3 minutes in are creepy. It thunders back in at 3 1/2 minutes until it settles with bass and piano after 5 minutes. Contrasts continue. "Deinococcus Radioduran" opens with the vocalsist screaming. Just an insane song that is all over the place.

"Obsession" opens with pounding drums as vocals come in. A spacey calm takes over. Heavy bass 2 1/2 minutes in followed by intense vocals and sound. Incredible ! "Christmas Eve" has such a good drum intro. Crazy vocals with a dark heavy sound come in quickly. Violin followed by riffs. It settles again as contrasts continue. "Negation Of Becoming" has lots of funky bass early before vocals and ripping guitar come in. An eerie calm 2 minutes in with piano and later at 5 minutes with creepy vocals. "Dreams Slayer" is led by drums and violin early. Huge bass with theatrical vocals follow. This contrast continues. Check out the guitar 4 minutes in ! The ending is out of control.

Challenging, complex, heavy and bizarre is the order of the day on "Forget the Colours". Amazing !

Fifth studio album of this very intristing but in same time hard to digest bad named Forget the colours from 2002. I know previous two album from this band, and liked very much Chimica whi is to me at least the best album they ever done, they needed almost 5 years to come with a new album issued at Mellow records. Well to tell the truth, the ideas on this release are ok, but to much avant metal for my taste and less prog metal as on Chimica for ex. The musicianship is top notch for sure, what suffers here is the musical ideas, not very well constructed and kinda chaoutic in places, but still well performed by the members. One of the most original band coming from Italy in last 2 decades in prog metal field, Garden Wall still is miles away from popularity, I mean they are almost unknown to vast majority of prog metal fans, for sure they need much more attention because they have quite unique albums in this zone of prog, maybe not realy this one, but previous 2 are great.Sometimes it sounds like a metalized Frank Zappa, realy, so disonant and ambigous aproach to music are not very often seen in prog metal and aswell combined with avant moments gives to the listner in same time a great and yet very hard to take in forst listen all album. Long pieces, well performed, very strange atmosphere on some of them, but ok in the end. Forte tracks to me are Dreams Slayer or opening piece Lead, some violin interlude with the rest and give a certain dark and yet vivace sound overall. Good album by a good band, 3 stars nothing more nothing less, but less enjoyble then Chimica where I've gived aswell 3 stars. Fans of Psychotic Waltz, Thinking Plague or even Frank Zappa may have some good moments while listning to their albums.