UNCIVILIZED

Brazilian prog metal band with a strange and funny name Bad Salad was known to me since 2 or 3 years ago when they were and still are very popular on youtube making Dream Theater cover versions. I must admit they are pretty good at that some covers are more then killer sounding very good and above all the musicianship is awesome like on Metropolis from Images and words. The year 2012 is the year when they release , finaly their own material named Uncivilized available at cdbaby among others. I was very curious to hear this one, because I know that they are very capable musicians, each member is very skilfull for sure, I must admiting that some passages are beyond excellent, I'm impressed how such young band can deliver so solid prog metal, technical, complex. So, on this release we have progressive metal well performed, well produced, musicaianship is killer only the originality lacks big time, sounding ike a DT clone from Brazil. Well I'm not bother about that here, because some pieces are excellent like Mourning, well balanced guitars and keyboards, nice vocal delivery and stunning druming another great one is the opening track the shortest one, because the rest are all over 10 min. Technical prog metal with nice changes in tempo, nice breaks and all ingredients for a good album. I like it and fans of the genre can easy take some spins worth it. In places sounding better then DT who lost their ideas since Octavarium. 3.5 stars

"Uncivilized" is the debut full-length studio album by Brazilian progressive metal act Bad Salad. The album was independently released in July 2012. Bad Salad were founded in 2007 by guitarists Thiago Campos and Marcelo Seabra, bassist Felipe Campos, and drummer Caco Goncalves, but struggled for a couple of years to find the last members for the lineup, so it wasn´t until early in 2010 when keyboard player César Zolhof joined the ranks, that the band were able to start searching for a vocalist, who would fit their new more dynamic sound. After a lengthy tryout the band chose Denis Oliveira as their frontman. Unfortunately César Zolhof left Bad Salad again in November 2010, but the band were able to finish recording "Uncivilized" anyway with César Zolhof as a session musician.

The music on the album is what I´d charachterize as "traditional" progressive metal. Traditional is of course quite the contradictionary term to use about a progressive metal album, but in this case it covers the fact that Bad Salad aren´t about to revolutionize the world of progressive metal with "Uncivilized". However what they do deliver here is one hell of a powerful, well performed, well produced, and well written album. They are first and foremost great composers and the tracks are generally very catchy, which is actually quite the achivement considering that all 7 tracks on the 78:28 minutes long album, are between 6 and 15 minutes long, and that most of them are over 10 minutes long. The tracks are very dynamic featuring both heavy riffs, challenging instrumental parts, memorable choruses, skillful keyboard work and strong rythmic playing too. As mentioned above they don´t necessarily play anything you haven´t heard before, but they do what they do damn well...

...the musicianship are outstanding all the way around. The instrumental part of the music is spot on and lead vocalist Denis Oliveira is incredibly skilled. He is able to deliver both smoth/soft styled vocals when that is needed but also some really raw vocals when the music calls for that. He is a great asset to the band´s music.

"Uncivilized" is overall a very convincing debut album by Bad Salad and it would be wrong to just call them promising because these guys are already at the top of their game delivering quality progressive metal to the people. In other words this doesn´t sound like a debut album to my ears, but rather the work of a seasoned band. I´d be very interested to see what these guys are able to create in the future. A 4 - 4.5 star (85%) rating is deserved.

With an album title and cover that recall hardcore and a name bringing to mind ska-punk, Bad Salad are actually loyal Dreamtheater followers (just check their YouTube content). More precise, the mid-period, more thrashy DT. So, expect 10-minute plus songs, lots of themes that develop gradually, rather than abruptly (which is a plus), crazy instrumental workouts and time signatures.

What you shouldn't expect, however, are DT-like melodic and vocal pop sensibilities. This isn't harsh by any means (although some screaming and "evil robot" vocals make brief appearances), and there are 2 out of 7 slow tracks (which overstay their welcome, just like some DT tracks, by the way) but the focus here is more on technicality than melody. But this is good, technically talented prog metal.