CONSORTIUM PROJECT

Ian Parry is best known for being the vocalist of progressive/power metal Dutch band Elegy (as well as guesting on early Ayreon's albums). In 1999 the singer took a break from his main job and assembled a cast of fine musicians to record his debut solo album, simply titled Ian Parry's Consortium Project. With Parry as the main songwriter as well as keyboard player, the line-up was comprised of an impressive list of fellow musicians, including Stephan Lill (Vanden Plas), Patrick Rondat (soon to join Elegy too) and Thomas Youngblood (Kamelot) on guitars, Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy) on drums, and Barend Courbois (Vengeance), Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) and Martin Helmantel (Elegy) on bass.

The music is a blend of soft progressive metal, melodic power metal and hard rock, not too far from the type of sound one can find on the early Ayreon records. Royal Hunt may be another reference in terms of sound. The songs are mostly guitar- and keyboard-driven mid-tempos, with riffs that are gritty and majestic, but also very melodic and accessible. Meanwhile, the rhythm section provides a robust backbone that keeps things simple and to the point, rarely straying too far off the main beat. These are tracks clearly written with Ian Parry's vocals in mind and so the whole music revolves around the vocal hooks, with simple structures that are based on the repetition of verse-bridge-chorus, with a rare middle-eight thrown-in in a couple of songs. Each song also contains an inevitable guitar solo, usually placed after the chorus, allowing the guest guitarists to have the spotlight shined on them.

Given the rather straightforward and fairly unadventurous musical background, the success of the songs largely depends on Parry's melodic lines and performance. He is one of those singers in the tradition of Ronnie James Dio, with a voice that is gritty but also very expressive, and with a decent range. While his performance is generally good, the vocal lines he has written for himself do not always hit the mark. When they do, the songs are pretty good, like the opening duo "House of Cards" and "Banquet for Thieves", which feature a strong chorus that acts as climax to the momentum that the songs build over the verse and bridge. The piano-based ballad "A Miracle Is All We Need" is another strong song, wisely placed in the middle of the album to give the proceedings a much-needed change of pace after a sequence of mid-tempo tracks that somewhat tend to blur together.

Elsewhere, however, things do not work as well as the album's beginning might lead one to hope. "Evilworld", "Change Breeds Contempt", "The Snake" and "Criminals & Kings" are all sub-par tracks, with weak vocal melodies, especially on the choruses that fail to give the songs the cathartic boost they would so much need. The other tracks fair better, but only slightly. One gets the impression that Parry's songwriting is a tad too monothematic, with many of the songs here following the same structure and the same melodic ideas. Past its first half, the album becomes somewhat of a chore to get through, despite the fact that its closing tracks "Chain of Fear" and "Pandora's Box" are decent. The sound production does not help either, as the record sounds somewhat muddy and powerless.

Overall, Ian Parry's solo debut is a decent, but somewhat underwhelming effort. It is the classic album that would have benefitted a lot from a pruning down of two/three tracks, as well as an injection of more diverse and exciting material. The album is saved by a couple of good tracks as well as by the great line-up of musicians (including Parry), who guarantee solid performances all around. However, I would only recommend this to fans of the singer, because if you are looking for good progressive metal of the early 2000s, there is so much better stuff out there than this.

Continuum in Extremis is the second album of the solo musical project by Ian Parry, best known as the vocalist of progressive/power metal Dutch band Elegy. The singer released a first album under the name of "Ian Parry's Consortium Project" in 1999, which was intended to be a one-off departure from his main band Elegy. However, the success of the first record convinced the singer to continue the project and thus in 2001 Continuum in Extremis was released, with Parry helped once again by a large and impressive score of fellow musicians, among which many had also played on the first album, including Stephan Lill (Vanden Plas), Patrick Rondat (Elegy) and Thomas Youngblood (Kamelot) on guitars, Dirk Bruinenberg (Elegy) on drums, Günter Werno (Vanden Plas) on piano/keyboards, and Jan Bijlsma (Vengeance) and Patrice Guers (who will later play with Rhapsody) on bass.

While Continuum in Extremis shares many sonic characteristics of the previous records, there are also marked differences, including a general upping of the ambitions and scale of the project. For one, the music on the new album is the fruit of a more collaborative effort, with Lill, Youngbllod and Rondat all contributing to the songwriting, whereas the debut record was penned entirely by Parry. To signify the passage from solo project to a more rounded band effort, the album indeed came out under the banner "Consortium Project", dropping the "Ian Parry's" part of the band's name. Another important difference is that, while the debut album was a collection of thematically separated songs, Continuum in Extremis is a concept album based on a fairly convoluted story about a utopian/dystopian future where men and women have evolved as separate species living separate lives on the planet. Moreover, the music on Continuum in Extremis is heavier and more firmly rooted in progressive metal than the previous record, with the hard rock influences that were fairly prominent on the debut, largely dispensed of here.

While on paper these changes could have fixed some of the shortcomings of Parry's first record (especially the fairly monotonous songwriting), the new album fails spectacularly to deliver on its promises. In my opinion, it all comes down to pretty weak songwriting. This is music that uses all the right ingredients of progressive metal (gritty riffs that strike a good balance between immediacy and intricacy, richly symphonic keyboard arrangements, solid rhythm section that adds just the right amount of complexity), but somehow fails to combine them into a tasty finished product. The songs fail to build any momentum and one has often the impression that they meander directionlessly, riff after riff, into nowhere, without reaching any emotional climax or resolve. Parry's weak vocal melodies are probably the main culprit here, as they are completely unremarkable and fail to give a much-needed melodic identity to the songs. The end result is nearly one hour of music that just chugs on and on and on, without doing much else for the listener. This is what I would call "elevator metal music": an inoffensive heavy background which you can mildly nod your head to, but that becomes tremendously boring if you divert your full attention to it.

I find very little to save here. The musicianship is good, and it couldn't be otherwise given the quality of the line-up involved in the project. Parry's voice is good too, gritty and emotional, it transmits good Dio-esque vibes. The lack of good vocal melodies is a killer for me, but I cannot complain about the singer's technical performance. Songwise, the two ballads of the album ("Intrusions of Madness" and "Sentiment in Sanctuary") are among the least unremarkable pieces, featuring some interesting vocal arrangements. "What You Sow, You Reap" is another decent track with good riffs and decent vocals. The rest is pretty forgettable, even after repeated listens.

Overall, this album was pretty disappointing for me. The line-up, the concept nature of the album, and the fact that this was a follow-up to an already decent debut had made me hopeful for a good listening journey. Alas, it became an excruciatingly boring trip, with very few notable moments amidst a grey sea of dull averageness. I'd only recommend this to hardcore fans of Parry.

Ian Parry has done a fantastic job with the debut release of his Consortium Project. A group consisting of... wait... hold on, who the hell is Ian Parry?!

His name is so almost-pompously placed in the title of the album as if he's someone you should know. It's almost hilarious. He's released a few solo rock albums, and he was known at the time of this albums release for fronting the Dutch prog/power metal band Elegy, who I actually quite like, but apparently nobody else really does. Still, when I got this CD and saw some of the musicians involved, my interest certainly piqued. Besides the savior of music himself, Ian Parry, this album features Thomas Youngblood from Kamelot, Arjen Lucassen of Ayreon fame, and members of Elegy, the band Parry was fronting at the time, all make appearances.

All jokes aside though, Ian Parry, messiah of music and master of the microphone, has gone and released a pretty good album. The music sounds exactly as you'd expect it to; guitar/keyboard-driven progressive metal, that actually does a fantastic job of blending elements of progressive and power metal, along with hard rock and even AOR influences. And Parry does have a pretty good voice. Bonus points!

That doesn't stop things from getting stale though. As half-way through the record the quality of the songs starts to diminish a little. They're not drastically terrible, but they certainly ooze of filler material, not worthy of a musical prophet such as Ian Parry. But the first few tracks, in particular, 'House of Cards', 'Banquet of Thieves', 'Garden of Eden' and 'Change Breeds Contempt' are all fine examples of good, quality progressive metal. And the closing track 'Pandora's Box' picks things up again, so at least the album doesn't end on a bum-note.

It's nothing that will change your life, but it will make a fine addition to the collection of any fans of progressive or power metal.

Ian Parry's consortium Project is based on a very complicated concept. A parallel Universe in which after the killing of John Kennedy somebody invents a machine which permits instantaneous communications and this leads to a new evily world order.

During a period of 14 years the Dutch-based English vocalist has released 5 chapters of this saga. This is the second.

Well, it could have been the first too as the level and the contents are almost identical. It's prog- metal with clean vocals not too dissimilar from those of Arjen Lucassen's projects (in which he often guests) but with less peaks respect to Ayreon. The music sounds similar to Ayreon but despite the very intriguing concept, from the musical point of view there aren't many things really interesting.

All well played with decent arrangements and pleasant enough, it's a nice album as the first one was, but with no highlights and nothing to be remembered forever. One track that I particularily like in this second chapter is "Mirror Image" which even if sometimes sounds like the 80s longhair bands contains some good ingredients, keyboards in particular, but the good is that it changes very often, like in a rock opera... like Lucassen let's say.

Ian's voice can appear standardized but I have to say that I like it, maybe thanks also to his various collaborations in Lucassen's projects. His voice is familiar to me.

One possible highlight is "Sentiment in Sanctuary", but as I've said, all the songs are at almost the same level.

A perfect fit into the three stars definition.

A rapid glance to the lineup and you have in front of you the best of Dutch Progressive Metal, starting from Arjen Lucassen.

Well this is mainly a Ian Parry's project initially intended for a single album that later had three follow-ups, becoming the longest sci-fi inspired concept that I currently know. The fifth album of the Project is announced for this summer.

Lovers of progressive metal may consider this a masterpiece as good progressive metal is exactly what you'll find inside. What can be of interest for all the others is the skillful musicianship, the good songwriting and the concept behind. The album's alternative title is "Criminals and Kings".

Highlights are "Banquet Of Thieves", "Garden Of Eden", "Pandora's Box" and "Chain Of Fears".

A particular mention is deserved by "The Entity" that's a very atmospheric short instrumental. or the slow "A Miracle Is All We Need" with it's romantic piano intro.

There are some moments that remind to the 80s "hairy metal bands" but luckily not so poor as these. To me, this is a good album, but is a step beyond masterpieces like Ayreon's The Human Equation, but also to the Vengeance material, to mention another band which featured Ian. If we consider the whole 4 (now 5) albums it's an impressive work but taken alone it's just good.

Pure Magic.

I have no idea why this group/album is so dissapointingly underated. This is some of the best Progressive Power metal I have ever heard. All the musicians are extremely talented, making technical skill a highlight. Also Ian Parry's vocals are very good and his compositions (He writes most of the music and lyrics) are Highly complex. The lyrical concept is an ongoing one continued from the previous two albums.

No matter if the song is more progressive or more toward regular power metal, it is beautiful. This album has masterpieces in both realms. "Reductio Ad Absurdum" for example, is a fast paced power metal song. The ending of this one has awesome guitar solos switching back and forth from a minor backing riff to a major one. The effect sends chills down my spine. On the more progressive end, "Across the Seven Seas" is one with lots of piano and slower melodies. It is one of the more beautiful moments. Also "Beyond the Gateway of Legends" a lot of times sounds more like prog rock than metal.

All in all, this album rules. It has an atmosphere that not many other albums have and has no low points. Listen and revel in it's splendor.

Featuring something that we call "typical" Rock/Metal vocals, this is quite special Prog Metal. Of course, it's found on typical PM (not Private Message) elements, but that's like with cooking. You have this dough, but you can either do some dull pastry from it, or make elaborate cake.

This is the cake, even without cherry on top. Which means that this is no masterpiece that would be revolution in music, but is still good anyway. How is this possible ? Well, even I said typical vocals, they work extremely well. Other elements like ocassional melodic element, little twists in rhythm, but pace of songs remains the same. There is also acoustic part and that is all to be said here.

4(-) maybe "just another Prog Metal" for some, but I believe that you will find what you like here.

CONSORTIUM PROJECT is the musical fruit of the brain of a very,very talented and,in my opinion,unjustly underrated musician called IAN PARRY!He has an excellent voice and is known especially because his involvement in the excellent prog metal band ELEGY-now dismbanded,unfortunatelly!!He made some excellent albums with this Dutch combo- MANIFESTATION OF FEAR-is a little masterpiece-a concept album of a very high quality!Now,it seems that IAN has finally found his way with CONSORTIUN PROJECT-a very ambitious musical propject where Ian is pushing his creative limits to the prog metal terrotory with each album!It's difficult to say which CONSORTIUM PROJECT albums is the best,because all have a great level of technicity, and musicality-you get exactly what you expect and you are never dissapointed with any new CP album!That's the same situation with this third opus-a very enjoyable and likeble journey in IAN PARRY'S universe.TERRA INCOGNITA ssems to be a true all star project-just look at the list of the impressive musicians involved in the project and you'll realise that it's impossible to have a weak album with so many big names on it!Musically speaking -it reminds a little about ELEGY-but it's more bombastic-the keyboards have a very important role in this music!Excellent addition in the collection of any prog metal lover and the prove thet an excellent voice and a good composer can offer excellent music to the prog metal amateurs,without any compromise!4,5 STARS and congratulations!

Chapter 4 in the Consortium Project is a classy release.

Melodic power metal is the name of the game here, with relatively short tracks that mix slow to mid-paced guitar riffs with synths, tight bass and drums underscoring. Several vocalists contribute, but the passionate vocals of Ian Parry dominate; the other vocalists here mainly add some variation.

The tunes are well written, the guitar chops are interesting and the synth work adds moods and atmosphere in a very nice way. Catchy and melodic choruses see to it that most songs are memorable, making the songs easy to get into.

Nothing new and unique here, but worth checking out by fans of high quality melodic power metal.