| The Great Divide | 1999 |
| Liberation | 2001 |
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
Ooh yeah - round up another one of them neo prog metal bands on the Magna Carta label. Let's face it, Ice Age from the getgo have a few very noticeable things against them. Number one, the group as a whole doesn't have an intimidating grasp of vocal melody - it takes at least a couple listens for these hooks to even get in your head at all, if ever. In terms of originality, they really come up short, too, as their sound is derivative of both old (Yes) and new school prog (Dream Theater) with a tinge symphonic metal, and they don't seem to be schooled in musical forms that don't fall into these two categories, resulting in a painful lack of diversity. Then there's the vocalist Josh Pincus, who treads dangerously close to Dennis DeYoung of Styx at numerous times (a posterchild for overdramatic singing). And the album as a whole is 74 minutes long. With these things in mind, you'd think the band would fall flat on their face here...
But yet, within all these weaknesses comes an overwhelming strength - these guys can flat out play. Within all these instrumental parts are a simply fantastic display of tightness and moments that will knock your socks off. And nowhere is it demonstrated better than the instrumental they're best known for, "Spare Chicken Parts", which is simply a classic 8:50 tour-de-force of prog metal, showing off their unbelievable skill within its' bombastic organ/guitar intro, a really exciting rocking main theme, a drum solo that somehow fits seamlessly in the framework of the song. Yikes. The band's 11 minute title song is almost as great, as its' ambient introduction is a brilliant addition and the main keyboard line is really captivating. The rest of the piece flows seamlessly between that keyboard playing, an addictive timeshifting groove, a rather interesting melody and fascinating tempo changes.
These two songs may be the reasons for the album to exist, but apart from the boring and unnecessary 'On Our Way' portion of the closing 11 minute two-part suite "To Say Goodbye" (whose introductory instrumental 'Worthless Words' is still nice), there isn't a song on here that could be called weak. "The Bottom Line" and "Because Of You" are probably the best of the other songs - the former really has a crunch and musical/lyrical darkness to it that does justice to its' nice symphonic intro (catchy chorus, too) and the latter is a fine ballad/rocker with some really excellent bass playing coming through. "One Look Away" is a piano ballad that borders on dangerously cheezy in its' intro, but the entirely non-trite and often thoughtful lyrics, the noticeable passion flowing through the fine vocal melody, and especially the ending guitar solo, make it work.
As for the rest of the songs, none of them are terribly remarkable, but each of them have good qualities. The 10 minute opener "Perpetual Child" has a fairly excellent introductory build, and that 'lost inside... the great divide' portion is groovy, though none of the rest stands out. "Sleepwalker" is a pretty good aggressive song, too, though the chorus melody is a bit awkward, and "Join" is enjoyable anthemic bombast and all despite the hook not being all that striking. Even "Miles To Go", featuring embarassingly dumb lyrics like 'father filled my head with tales of daring do', has a really neat bass groove in its verse/chorus transition. As for the overall picture, despite all the obvious weaknesses, this probably could have been a really impressive modern prog offering at 40-45 minutes or so, but the extended length and lack of unique qualities let it down. Still a highly enjoyable effort though.
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(reviewed by Nick Karn)
After their initial display of chops and songwriting (or lack thereof), the band apparently decided to make their second full length effort an hour-long concept album (figures) about umm... liberation, I guess. There doesn't seem to be much conceptual continuity throughout, and the lyrics, while well written, aren't particularly revealing. Listening through this record (and this is also very noticeable on The Great Divide to a lesser extent), I can't help but think the band wouldn't be better off as an all-instrumental combo - the melodies during sections with vocals aren't that great, and like I said earlier, I'm just not that big on the Dennis DeYoung-ish singing style of frontman Josh Pincus. Plus, Pincus is a very solid keyboardist on his own, so it ain't like he would be left out of the picture.
And what a picture these instrumental parts possess. Several instances of excellent builds ("The Blood Of Ages"), completely and totally amazing grooves ("The Guardian Of Forever"), effectively 'atmospheric turned heavier' anthems ("The Wolf"), and pure musical bliss (my favorite on the album, the perfect thrashy instrumental "Musical Cages", featuring a wonderfully pretty bluesy/piano middle) show up here. Even the shorter interlude pieces are hardly filler at all, as they're all compact and memorable on their own and serve as perfect lead-ins to their respective longer songs (the rhythmic "March Of The Red Dragon", the groove oriented acoustic "Monolith", the eerie sports arena-like keyboards of "Howl", the Oriental-themed "Tong-Len" that follows the final longer piece "To Say Goodbye..." and closes the album).
The remainder of the songs are weaker, but still at least good quality. The opening epic "The Lhasa Road (No Surrender)" may not be a great indicator of things to come, as it essentially repeats the same not-that-developed (though memorable and energetic) melodic ideas, though "A Thousand Years" is quite a good reflective anthemic tune with nice lyrics on its' own, with a really neat intro build to boot, "When You're Ready" is the lengthiest piece here at nearly 9 minutes as an acoustic ballad that develops into an excellent power climax, with the rest of the song moving along nicely, and "To Say Goodbye, Pt. 1: Still Here" has fine majesty to it despite being a bit overlong. So in all, this is quite an impressive and more consistent workout of tasteful chops and good drama than before. It goes without saying it's still somewhat derivative and the melody writing skills haven't overwhelmingly improved since last time out, but again, this tightly knit instrumental unit compensates for it even better.
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