HOURGLASS

Wonderfully dramatic sounds open the curtain. Their instrumental technique is beyond description. It sounds like they would like to launch their intention strongly through such a beautiful but powerful sound collective. The middle part sounds pretty sensitive and a bit depressive, as if they would bump against a tough wall, but vaporization of 'hope' cannot be heard via their brilliant play. And in the latter part, deeply heavy but bright uptempo sound components encourage me. Really epoch-making.

A lot of the songs are varied: jazz fusion, metal, soft and delicate passages engage you as they emphasize the copious lyrics' messages. (There's even exotic influences in 'Pawn II', an exciting sequel to The Journey Into's awesome introductory track!) There's also some good work put into building atmosphere; 'Faces' is the prime example. (This track also does well with highlighting the singer's softer side.) But there's more to hear: catchy and memorable choruses and melodies are a feature in most of the songs, but more than anything, the bass is just amazing. From driving the pugnacity with glorious arpeggios to significantly enhancing the beauty of Hourglass' emotional movements, the bass never fails to force a smile. It's truly delightful.

Each of Hourglass' previous two albums contain multiple long songs and at least one suite. This one isn't, thankfully, any different because they know how to write epics. '38th Floor' enters your ears with, unsurprisingly, awesome bass that truly impresses, developing into a strong instrumental introduction that Hourglass does so well. The vocals come into play, and things get funky'once again, thank you bass! But, to match the lyrics, a rather melancholy atmosphere is built as well. Another instrumental ensues showing the brilliance of the bands' abilities. Things settle down with some percussion, synths, light guitar, and nice singing. However, it gets better: acoustic piano and acoustic guitar consummates the passage. Let it be known that underneath, as mentioned in the previous paragraph's coda, the bass is there as the foundation, amplifying your experience. After this, a small instrumental section powered by the guitar and bass leads into the beginning's lyrical goodness. It's nice, but I wish this song ended with a bang'as all great epics should. Nonetheless, '38th Floor' is a great song.

I'd like to continue, but I have to cut my meandering writing short. Everything I mentioned before is present on most of this album's tracks, and it all works very well. 'Facade', 'Delirium', and the eponymous suite are the highlights of the second disc, but that doesn't mean the other tracks aren't good too! If you like 'traditional' progressive metal with good songwriting, varied instrumentality, amazing bass, and bleak moods, then this album is 'the one.' I really hope this band releases another album before the universe' s heat death.

Released in 2002, it should come as no surprise that this is album is representative of the I&W-era Dream Theater school of music. With that said, Hourglass certainly brings their own with strong vocals, tight yet lengthy songs, salient bass, and memorable melodies. And while being categorically metal, Hourglass places more emphasis on more contemplative, lighter passages over heavy riff attacks such that lengthy tracks build up to something with some decent variation. Of course, this is still progressive metal, and there's some delicious metallic goodness--the opener "Pawn" is a good example--check out that bass!

As mentioned in the beginning paragraph, there's some long songs on this album, and they're pretty good. "Vantage Point" is the first to feature the softer side Hourglass, and has a good instrumental introduction; the song is centered around its elevating chorus and vocals. The first and shorter of the two suites on this album is "Plains of Remembrance"; this guy begins with another fine instrumental before giving away to the calm--gotta love that acoustic guitar! But that too moves into the next movement where the heaviness begins, building upon what was before it only to bow its head to beauty. "The Circle Breaks" is a ballad; powered by acoustic guitars; it's nice. "Not My Time" is the other primarily metal track on the album besides "Pawn". It's okay. The song to conclude this album is a beast, the eponymous "The Journey Into". Like the other long tracks, it begins with a strong instrumental that transitions to a softer passage, but since this epic is almost twenty-seven minutes long, there's a lot of room to play, and they do it well while also giving time to some fantastic melodies. This band is good at balancing rocking out with ensuring their songs don't degrade into ostensible jam sessions.

I learned about this band from perusing PA's alphabetical lists of bands, and what I discovered is very solid progressive metal that emphasizes building up their lengthy songs with strong musicianship without succumbing to ostensibly boring passages of fluff. Not only that, but they also don't bury the bass. I look forward to listening to their other albums.

Revision: Fixed and clarified some stuff

Revision: Rewrote most of the review

Musically HOURGLASS has their own style. It's progressive metal with neat song structures and instrumental parts. The bass is audible throughout the album, which I really value in progressive metal music. A few notable mentions for songs from this album are "38th Floor" and the title track "Oblivious to the Obvious".

"38th Floor" is at times peaceful, atmospheric, funky, and has the typical heaviness associated with progressive metal. It's a solid song and can be considered an epic (20+ min) and is one of the best from the album. The bass guitar is very good on this song, and the melodies are catchy.

"Oblivious to the Obvious" is the title track and 30+ min epic that ties the album together. It's a solid piece of music similar to "38th Floor" and has multiple parts. The progression in this track is neat as it plays through its five parts. Musically it might be the most diverse on the album, though "38th Floor" is also similar in that regard.

Nearly a 140 minute long double album, it may be a tad too long in duration for some, but I like having that much music accessible in one album, and it honestly goes by fairly quickly. This was a good find, and I recommend it to any fan of progressive metal.

Hourglass third studio album from 2004 named Subconcious is another worthy in any way progressive metal album. I was quite pleasent surprised about their previous release, this one is no diffrent. Progressive metal very well played, even the originality lacks, but is not a bad thing after all, they manage to come with a good album from start to finish. The album is very lenghy over 79 min of music , divided in 2 big sections Mists of Darkness and Exit Wounds , both sections devided again in small pieces clocking as a whole around almost one hour + 2 pieces from their own, title track and Altered State. So, progressive metal well performed, where the skills of the musicians are very prodominant, specialy on opening track almost 18 min of solid and quite well composed track, from gentle guitar parts to bursting moments, arrangements are top notch here, the guitar and drum passages are worth for sure to be heared by any prog metal listner, excellent parts. All album is technical, but never being to technical to become boring, is very well melted with more gentle, mellow parts to give a realy great result. The voice is pleasent and fits very well into this kind of music. Forte tracks are The Hammer's Strike , The unbeliver, very strong musicianship very similar with Dream Theater btw. So, 3 stars for this album, rounded to 3.5 , good towards great, prog metal listners will find this album a great discovery for sure.

Too much music here to really go over it all, but the first album starts with "On The Brink", and this is the highlight of this whole recording. It has this nice heavy intro with lots of bottom end. Synths join in then the tempo picks up around 1 1/2 minutes. It settles with piano before 3 minutes but not for long. Vocals after 4 minutes. A great throaty scream as well. I like the guitar before 8 1/2 minutes. It sounds like a mosquito. The bass is fat in the excellent instrumental section that follows. Vocals return before 11 minutes. Fantastic start.

One thing that bothers me about this album is the same thing that brought down "Subconcious" later on, and that's where the lyrics seem to become more important than the music.The only problem here is that THAT happens a lot more on this recording because it's so long. Anyway lots to like here but there are too many passages that seem to coast musically as the focus is put on the vocalist. Just my taste in music and distaste for double albums I suppose.

5(+), Hell, it even has damn jazz elements. I simply love this album, as it offers everything I want, with basis of prog metal. That's fine recipe if you ask me. Prog is here, every part of this record is soaked in it.