A minute into the opening, title track of Mouth Of Swords (InsideOut), the new album from The Safety Fire, and you’re hit by full and complex layers of progressive metal and rock that reaches back to the ’70s and forward to the future as it takes inspiration from a broad range of themes and styles. Whether it’s chugging riffs or twidly high-pitched dissonant shredding, smooth flowing grooves or erratic rhythms and arpeggios, higher-range vocals or angry shouting, the songs are a conglomeration of many and varied parts.Continue reading
Tag Archives: InsideOut
Devin Townsend Project – Retinal Circus
Devin Townsend is arguably one of the hardest working and most talented musicians in metal today. Especially over the last couple of years his musical output has been phenomenal. This is also a good moment to offer his fans a sort of career perspective under the guise of the Retinal Circus DVD.Continue reading
The Tangent – Le Sacre Du Travail
Like a cloud of smoke, The Tangent’s line-up has always been a fleeting thing but creator Andy Tillison has never given up on the name no matter how many times he has been forced to dissolve the members. Over the past 11 years he has remained constantly at the helm of his prog-rock ship and it’s thanks to his vision and need to produce music that The Tangent name still lives on. Continue reading
Sound Of Contact – Dimensionaut
Without paying too much attention to the fact that Sound Of Contact’s lead singer is the son of Phil Collins, Simon Collins’ progressive rock act more than fills the void left by certain prog rock bands disbanding and reforming under peculiar guises.Continue reading
Haken – The Mountain
British progressive outfit Haken have slowly but most assuredly built themselves something of an avid following over the past couple of years. This might be stating the bleedin’ obvious but this is hardly a surprise for those of us who follow this sort of thing. And, if you’re reading this, I suspect that you are the sort of person who does follow that sort of thing.Continue reading
James LaBrie – Impermanent Resonance
Dream Theatre frontman James Labrie is a busy guy. Not only are the Prog giants releasing a new self-titled record this year, but the man has also found time to release a solo album. Impermanent Resonance (InsideOut) is Labrie’s third album under is own name, and fifth if you include is MullMuzzler days. With the exception of Wichers, the band, made up of Matt Guillory on Keyboards, Marco Sfogli & Peter Wichers (ex-Soilwork) on guitars, Ray Riendeau on bass and Peter Wildoer playing drums and contributing harsh vocals, are the same line-up as on Labrie’s previous solo outing, Static Impulse. And on the whole the two albums are very similar in sound and style.Continue reading
Leprous – Coal
I don’t care who you are — start managing people, and prepare for a bag of dicks. They may blossom from you, they may sprout from elsewhere, but trust me… bag of dicks. Probably because no one likes to be told what to do, and despite any pre-existing relationship, things get strained — which is perhaps why Leprous grows adventurous when released from the reign(rein?) of Vegard “Ihshan” Tveitan. This is not to suggest potential dissolution nor unhappy work conditions (after all, I’m not on tour with these folks), but it’s easy to imagine how one might feel a greater personal investment in their own creation.Continue reading