This Week's Featured Album: Sieges Even - The Art of Navigating by the Stars

When Sieges Even came back onto the scene in in 2005 after an 8-year hiatus, many people (myself included) had never heard of this little German band. However, that year would certainly change that for many people. This "second debut," as one could call it, was an incredible surprise, offering a fresh sound that was extremely well performed and simply offered fantastic songs from start to finish. Furthermore, the lyrical approach allowed for a lot of repeat listens to understand the navigational leitmotif present throughout the album.

In all, this was perhaps the strongest album of 2005: strong enough to make 2008's announcement that the band had split extremely disappointing. Luckily, we got two great studio albums from the band before the split (as well as the albums that preceded the reformation). This is one that every listener out there should hear. Samples and purchasing are available over on the right.

Subsignal Announces Record Label, Tentative Release Date

Subsignal, the new band featuring Arno Menses and Markus Steffen of the recently disbanded Sieges Even, has announced that they have agreed to a deal with GoldenCore Records/ ZYX Music for the release of its upcoming album, which will be called Beautiful & Monstrous. At this point, the band expects to begin recording in May and have the album ready for a September release.

There's currently a sampler of songs from the album on the Subsignal MySpace page.

Details on Next Demians Album

The first concrete details about the next Demians album have been revealed by Nicolas Chapel. At this point, those details mostly consist of Chapel talking up the project, but even that is plenty enough to generate excitement, especially considering Chapel's own feelings toward the new music, which he says has "turned to an obsession."

"I don't want to do anything but sit behind the piano or smash fuzz pedals right now. Writing this new music has really washed away my frustrations,"Chapel says. "The new material is haunting. It's purer in so many ways. Contemplation through chaos. A lot of the negative energy I accumulated throughout the past few years from putting a live band together, mixed with the life-changing joys of touring all over Europe last winter and meeting hundreds of fantastic people has finally turned into a massively beautiful experience. I feel like now is the right time to put it all on tape".

Chapel also stated that we should expect to hear the album in early 2010. That day can't come too soon.

Riverside Announces Release Date for Anno Domini High Definition

Not much besides a cover and release date for now, but InsideOut has announced the two release dates for Riverside's upcoming album, Anno Domini High Definition. The dates are as follows:

June 22nd (Europe)
July 14th (North America)

There's some other scattered information available at this point, such as the running time of exactly 44:44 and the five track names, which are:

1. Hyperactive
2. Driven to Destruction
3. Egoist Hedonist
4. Left Out
5. Hybrid Times

The band has set up a website devoted to information about the new project, which can be found at http://www.annodominihighdefinition.com/

This Week's Featured Album: Sylvan - Artificial Paradise

Back in 2004, the German band Sylvan released Artificial Paradise, one of its strongest works to date. Back then, Sylvan was the sort of progressive band that created thoughtful music with a lot of variety. Some songs sound like huge soaring anthems, while some are slower and more contemplative. In either case, Sylvan offered a sound here that was truly its own, and the band hasn't quite matched the sheer variety found on this album in any of its subsequent albums. Therefore, even if you've heard Presets or Posthumous Silence and been unimpressed, you might be surprised at how good this one is. As always, samples and a purchasing option are over on the right.

Transatlantic to Reunite in 2009

Transatlantic, the famous supergroup consisting of Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Roine Stolt, and Pete Trewavas, has announced that the band is reuniting to create a new studio album for a possible 2009 release. According to the very brief press release, the band began work earlier this month. There are also rumors that a tour is being planned as well. With any luck, some new information will be available soon.

This Week's Featured Album: Place Vendome - Streets of Fire

Place Vendome is a melodic rock band including some well-respected names from the rock and metal community: including Michael Kiske, former vocalist for Helloween. But where many melodic rock bands fall into a rut of unremarkable songs, the fantastic musicians and somewhat heavier approach of Place Vendome makes it an ideal melodic rock record for listeners who care as deeply about strong instrumentation as they care about strong melodic songwriting.

Streets of Fire is strong from start to finish, offering a decent variety and a lot of memorable songs. It may not be the most complex record that you'll hear this year, but it's still a great addition any music library.

Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia Review

Average (two stars out of five)

Bands fear labels. Given the wrong label, a band can limit its appeal and even prevent itself from selling records. Even music journalists like myself can struggle with labels at times (since my site is called "Progressive" Melodies, after all). The quickest escape from a label is a complete reinvention, which is what Pure Reason Revolution offers on its latest album, Amor Vincit Omnia. While the band's previous album, The Dark Third, was a spacey rock album with plenty of progression in the songwriting that drew comparisons to Pink Floyd, Amor Vincit Omnia is nearest to an electronica album, with plenty of cheesy synth, programmed drum beats, and fancy production tricks. Alone, this does not lead to a bad album. But when all of the band's instrumental talent is stripped, its progression and intelligence in songwriting forgotten, and its melodies weakened, there's not much left besides the band's hallmark vocal harmonies to keep the interest of a listener hoping for the lush and brooding sound of the band's previous work. In this case, simply taking a risk isn't enough: a band needs to create good music, which it did not do on this album.

It's easy to find the sound of this album just plain annoying. You get plenty of beeps and bloops on the album opener, "Les Malheurs," as well as a programmed drum beat that sounds like it is right out of techno (in other words, as simplistic as they come). In essence, this means that any listener who loves instrumentation will be utterly bored here. Unfortunately, this boredom will continue for the majority of the album. The first song released by the band prior to the album's release, "Victorious Cupid," does provide some real instrumentation, but it's largely hidden under more synth. In a way, it's a combination of the band's new sound and old sound, and while it stands as one of the album's stronger tracks, the ways that it could have been better are numerous.

What really holds a lot of these songs back is the songwriting, which simply isn't as strong as it was on The Dark Third. While that album felt like a musical journey, this sounds like a series of disjointed tracks that don't give the album any sort of logical progression or personality. The album's first single, "Deus Ex Machina," is an annoying track that offers little other than repetitious synth work and poor vocal melodies, especially in the verses. The song improves somewhat in the chorus, where the band's vocal harmonies take over the spotlight, but it's not enough to make you forget the skip button that your finger hovers over. Disconnect is a track that you'll likely want to skip as soon as the track starts thanks to an unbelievably irritating robotic voice saying "Disconnect" over and over again. By the time we get some actual music, the irritation is so severe that it's difficult to find any enjoyment in the song. It may stand as the worst song that I've heard since this site opened. The album's nine-minute track "The Gloaming" is yet another instance of wasted potential that will simply frustrate the listener. After about 45 minutes, the album ends with the piano-driven AVO, though even the piano here is altered in some annoying ways. Though I was initially put off by the album's short running time, it quickly became a relief.

In the end, this is an album that is, at its worst, painfully bad. However, there are moments of enjoyment to be had here, though they are often enjoyable simply because they engender nostalgia of the band's better days. Had the addition of sequencers and synthesizers been the only change, this may have been a good album. However, the songs themselves are often just bad in themselves due to some weak songwriting and production tricks that, rather than adding to the track, simply make them feel disjointed and fake. There's simply no heart in these songs; the music sounds like it is not only performed by robots, but written by them as well. When I heard that this album would fit clearly into electronica, I hoped that this wouldn't ruin the music. It turns out that it didn't: it was just one piece in this simplistic, irritating, and terribly flawed puzzle.

Andrew Kauz
www.progressivemelodies.com

OSI's Blood to Be Shed in April

Most of the truly successful musical collaborations (or supergroups, if you prefer the term) are formed from musicians who have somewhat disparate musical directions. Such is the case of OSI, the very successful collaboration between Kevin Moore and Jim Matheos. Moore himself has stated that he and Matheos "have different musical tastes but an unspoken musical understanding." The results of that musical understanding will be available for listeners soon, with a European release date of April 27th and a North American date of May 19th. The great Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison will be playing on this album, and Opeth's Mikael Åkerfeldt will provide guest vocals on one track. Some samples are currently available at the official OSI website.

This Week's Featured Album: Cloudscape - Global Drama

I somehow missed this release last year, though it ended up on many Best of 2008 lists. In the past, Cloudscape's albums had always appealed to me, but had never impressed me. With this most recent release, Global Drama, Cloudscape has produced its best music to date, even if the band still doesn't do anything drastically new. However, nearly everything has been improved on this new album, including the production quality, the songwriting, and seemingly even the vocal performances. I can't say that the vocalist is my favorite, but he does an admirable job on this record.

There's some interesting musical qualities to this album that help it rise above the band's previous efforts, including some great instrumental choices and some varied influences, including a song with some middle eastern influences. In all, this is a very strong album, and one that progressive metal fans should enjoy. Samples and a purchasing option through Amazon are available to the right.