WHO'S THE BOSS IN THE FACTORY?

Among proggers, this album was one of the most popular of 2008, and it gathered so many positive reviews I felt I had to check it out. The omens weren't too good: one look at the cover and I was afraid this was just one more product from InsideOut's prog factory. But "Send a Message from the Heart", the near-twenty minute opening track, blew me away. Rousing melodies, stately "symphonic" arrangements, wild Moraz-like synthesizer solos and surprisingly jazzy (almost Holdsworthian) guitar solos: the piece had it all. Besides, you could easily listen to it just for Jonas Reingold's magisterial trebly bass. It seemed Karmakanic had a better chance of impressing me with their "epics" than most of their coevals.

However, on subsequent spins the glory of "Message to the Heart" diminished somewhat. It depends how cynical a mood I'm in. On certain days I'm prepared to get carried away by fake-sincere vocals. On other days I simply can't take lines like "Compassion leads your way into the sun on your way to paradise". I fully understand why so many symphonic prog bands try to sound uplifting, but a cliché is a cliché, no matter what.

And to my regret the remainder of the album failed to reach the level of excitement of that opening track. The second piece, "Let in Hollywood", is conventional Flower Kings-style rock, based on a blunt hard rocking riff. The third track (the title piece) sounds like yet another superfluous attempt to rebuild THE WALL, although it's almost redeemed by another (brief) Moraz-style synth solo, and a splendid middle section on piano. "Two Blocks from the Edge" is worse: histrionic vocals AND histrionic lead guitar only reveal run-of-the-mill adolescent angst. Empty lyrics like "What's the question, what's the answer, this life is killing me" are chucked at the listener, but the music never speaks of true emotion. (To be fair, the piece ends with some elegant electric guitar flourishes, but it's a case of too little too late.) The final track, "Eternally" (parts one and two), is Reingold's requiem for his parents, who perished in a car crash in 2007, and I hate to say it (for in this case the composer's feelings must have been all too real) but both music and lyrics are almost unbearably sentimental.

Verdict: Good in part, but not necessarily better than the dozens of symphonic prog albums that get churned out every month.

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