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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
After a somewhat unknown debut album, Shadow Gallery dive fully into the neo-prog metal scene with this one, and the end result is... umm.... not that good. I know modern prog fans are going to want to kill me for saying something like this, but here it goes - Carved In Stone is basically a good metal album that is nearly ruined by both dull attempts at balladry and the band trying way too hard to make some sort of grand ambitious statement - in trying to do so, they practically sound like amateurs. I recognize the considerable musical talents of all the members, particularly band leader Carl-Cadden James and keyboardist Chris Ingles, who seem like the most musically virtuosic dudes in the band to me, but their skill as arrangers in the art rock field is just iffy at best. And to make matters worse, there's orchestral and piano interludes between most of the songs to make them seem even more overblown than they are, and when the melodies are this uninspiring, this is annoying to say the least.
To begin with, the opening over 8 minute epic "Cliffhanger" almost obscures a pretty good vocal melody and nice harmony work by basing itself on an uninspiring, though at least memorable, groove and a lengthy (though dull) progressive jam at the end. It's not the worst thing in the world in the end, but it's definitely not a good sign of things to come. Plus, a couple of the ballads fall really flat as well, especially in the way the dull as adult pop "Don't Ever Cry, Just Remember" attempts to sound like something huge with its' fantasy lyrics and big harmonies, and the manner in which "Warcry" starts off exactly the same as its' predecessor (with the piano lines and all), only with a bland, unmemorable vocal melody mixed with plodding metal in the middle of it. They're not awful songs at the core - just heavily dull.
But not as dull, though, as the epic "Ghostship". See, there are some things we'll never know in this world, like whether or not there's life after death, what exactly happened in the JFK assassination, and why the hell this... thing is 21-1/2 friggin' minutes long. Okay, maybe the actual musical ideas in this epic aren't that bad (I do like the more energetic parts near the beginning), but if there is a more poorly flowing extended piece out there, I have yet to hear it. I'm sorry, but it seems as if they just threw like, four or five random musical and melodical ideas together and created a story out of it. Woohoo! There are maybe two or three memorable vocal melodies in this whole thing amongst more 'atmospheric' sections, generic 'power metal groove' portions, and a long piano solo around 15 minutes in that sounds like Ingles is imitating Keith Emerson in one of his more indulgent moments. Technically awesome, but also pointless in the context of the epic and boring at other points.
Okay, after all this complaining, there are reasons why I didn't give this effort an extremely low rating, mainly because the four remaining songs are pretty decent. The only one that approaches great is the impressive harmonized singalong "Crystalline Dream", which thankfully foreshadows several fine moments like that on the next album, but the other three are fine in their own right. "Celtic Princess" is a very pleasant piano and acoustic guitar instrumental, "Deeper Than Life" has a highly catchy singalong chorus that comes off as a good-quality power anthem (again, kinda in the Tyranny vein), and "Alaska", while a bit of a dull ballad, has a genuine prettiness in its' melody, and the middle eight portion halfway through, again, really shows the considerable vocal harmony talents of the crew. Just like some of this album certainly shows potential, it's just that, at far too many points, it's overshadowed by incredibly misguided ambition.
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(Nick Karn's review)
A huge leap forward in songwriting and arrangement from before. Not only is there no 20 minute plus mistake here, but this time, they seem to have condensed their songs into mostly sane length, emphasized the more wonderful pop-flavored harmony moments of stuff like "Crystalline Dream", and gave the songs a sense by making this into a full-scale concept album, and not a trivial one either, as it's a rather intriguing story about a young man's disillusionment with his job and the 'system'. Though the lyrics here frequently tread way too close to the intelligent political and introspective style of Queensryche in their prime (and vocalist Mike Baker could easily pass for Geoff Tate circa Operation: Mindcrime), and the music is still extremely reminiscent of most of the harder-edged modern prog bands, the actual songs are of very impressive quality, and the flow between different tracks in the story works very well - plus several of the melodies are quite breathtaking and appropriate for the album's atmosphere, which conveys a timeless winter time/night feel.
Most of the great melodies, fittingly enough, are found on the first half of the album, labeled 'Act I'. Particularly standing out in a huge way is "Mystery", which is a stunningly gorgeous and booming melodic song that is probably one of the definitive statements about internet communication ever written - and it never sounds cheezy in its' sentiment for a second. "Out Of Nowhere" is also irresistibly catchy in its' slow groove and chorus atmosphere, and "War For Sale" is pure riff-heavy speed that gets the adrenaline flow going after the fast and gripping introductory instrumental "Stiletto In The Sand". "Hope For Us?" is the first hint at the delicate ballad style also exhibited throughout (also put to a climactic use on the shorter act closing piece "Broken"), and it's well worthwhile. "Victims" rounds out the act as an enjoyable, if indistinguished, rocker.
The second act gets slightly weaker, and along with the derivativeness of the album, is the reason I don't give it a 9. Even so, not a single number here is weak in the least. Maybe "I Believe" is less interesting than the others due to its' slightly clumsy structure during its' 8 minutes, and "Ghost Of A Chance" isn't done as convicingly as the other softer songs, but both have the same effective atmosphere. They're also more than made up for in the highly dynamic "Roads Of Thunder", which has such a cool sing-along chorus with fast melodies, and another roller coaster ride instrumental "Chased", very much matching what its' title suggests. The provocative "New World Order" (featuring guest vocalist D.C. Cooper) is the political climax and twists and turns nicely, and "Christmas Day" features an unforgettably desolate piano line leaving a definite impression. In all, this is a worthwhile addition to a collection of modern prog, as it pulls off the conceptual aspects of the style in an impressive, even if not too original, fashion.
The album I'm reviewing today is called Operation: Mindcrime 2. In this sequel, or rather remake, of the classic original we get many ingredients that were there before. The overall structure and mood of the follow-up is identical to that of the original, the general idea of the story covers a lot of the same ground, and there is even another male/female vocal exchange similar to the one in "Suite Sister Mary" from the first Operation: Mindcrime. The first of the instrumental tracks, "Stiletto In the Sand," has quite a similar feel to both "Anarchy-X" and "Waiting For 22," while the second, "Chased," feels a lot like "The Needle Lies."
However this release is somewhat longer than and there is a drastic increase in the amount of shred guitar work included. It has also been split up into two different acts, with months assigned to several of the songs, starting in January and ending on "Christmas Day" in December, representing our main character's trip through a year. On the other hand, perhaps the follow-up here tries to be a tad more psychologically in depth in the story, but this does not work very well at all, and ends up fairly a uninteresting remake. And before I forget I think I should mention that "New World Order" seems quite a bit like "The Trial" from Pink Floyd's classic The Wall.
Overall Operation: Mindcrime 2 is certainly no match for the original effort, even though there are plenty of strong tracks ("War For Sale" and "New World Order" especially). In and of itself the album is a fine work filled with memorable melodies and impressive guitar playing, but since we already have the original Queensryche release out there it seems to just reuse ideas a bit too much, so perhaps this album would have been better if it didn't sound so much like the classic Operation: Mindcrime.
Ok, the joke's over. The album here is Shadow Gallery's Tyranny, and I think it's pretty obvious that they wanted to make the next Operation: Mindcrime with this album. Everything on here is good, but is just too much like Queensryche's 1988 classic. Had Mindcrime never been released, I would probably give this album a 9 or something, but when I was listening for the first time and hit to male/female vocal exchange in "Spoken Words" I just got so annoyed with the whole album. The band shows potential here, so maybe I'll consider getting another of their albums, but for now I can't help but be disappointed at the lack of original ideas on Tyranny.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Wow - if this isn't a prime example of a really hard album to rate, then I don't know what is. As a followup to Tyranny, this is a rawer, less symphonic, set of songs that would be more appropriate for a concert setting (if these guys ever tour, that is). Apparently the band also decided to put even more of an emphasis on incorporating full scale prog-metal jamming into their songs. Unfortunately, though, this is a problem in that Shadow Gallery are still not very solid when it comes to lengthy compositions (you'd think they would have learned from Carved In Stone), and that only serves to make their biggest weakness even more apparent. This frustration is apparent immediately in the opening "Cliffhanger 2", an immediate reminder that sequels aren't the greatest idea in the world. Sure, it's got an awesome uplifting anthemic intro build that the original from Stone lacked, but the song replaces this with exactly the same plodding slow groove of the original, not to mention that the jam this time around, while surely technically proficient, falls even more into the souless and generic prog-metal jamming than before, taking up nearly half of its' 13 minutes. So dull and non-descript.
Then there's also the 23 minute closer "First Light" (yeah I know it's advertised as 34 minutes, but I don't include the hidden nonsense, like pointless knocking sounds and new age ambience, as part of the song) - quite possibly the weakest 20 minute plus epic I've heard yet as of this writing (and I've heard several), with an astounding lack of memorable melodies and musical ideas, pathetic attempts at padding the song with 'ambience', and a really simplistic acoustic part repeated endlessly at the fadeout. It does get somewhat better more than halfway through, when they quit the sluggish tempo and try really hard to be Iron Maiden for awhile, but not by all that much. Along with the science fiction/space alien lyrics that aren't interesting in the least, it's one epic I could easily live without.
Fortunately, this band is really solid in the 5-7 minute prog-pop format (as also proven by Tyranny), and the results here are mostly wonderful. Sure, "Destination Unknown" also boasts some more dull jamming, and it's mostly a forgettable piano/acoustic ballad, but at least the last minute or so has a simply beautiful choir-like atmosphere, and the remaining three songs are all incredibly catchy numbers that fully redeem it. "Colors" has totally gorgeous backing vocals (especially in the verses), a life-affirming chorus ('so many different ways to look at things'), and a bridge that does that beauty justice, with "Society Of The Mind" featuring a nice driving riff and the most complex melody on the album, while the title track is an excellent burst of energy. The thing that bugs me most about Legacy, though, is that this is a textbook example of why it's not always smart for modern prog bands to insist on creating (mostly conceptual) albums that are over an hour long. Without the garbage of "First Light", this one's still around 37 minutes, and well worthy of maybe a low 7 or at least high 6. But that epic... uggghhh....
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