RockRoast

Tyranny (1998)
Shadow Gallery

Tyranny is one of my favorite concept albums. It tells the story of a weapons designer who comes to his senses and realizes he’s building bombs that will kill thousands of innocent people. He becomes crippled by disillusionment until he meets a similar soul on the internet who helps him make sense of all the corruption. He falls in love with her and the end of the album sees them still determined to make a positive change in the world, even as they flee evil government agents.

It may sound cheesy in writing, but the music makes it work with minimal lameness. After a brief instrumental introduction, “War For Sale” kicks the album off with an energetic, guitar-driven anthem. The climactic eight-minute “New World Order” boasts a dueling vocal between Shadow Gallery’s Mike Baker and Royal Hunt’s D.C. Cooper. The final track, “Christmas Day,” imparts inspiring words of hope over a beautiful piano melody. Most importantly, Tyranny showcases Shadow Gallery’s characteristic melodies. Bassist Carl Cadden-James is responsible for most of the vocal lines on this record, and Tyranny stands as a shining example of his talent for writing strikingly unique and memorably emotional melodies. All other elements of Shadow Gallery’s sound are present, accounted for, and at their finest.

Shadow Gallery’s work sounds derivative at times and it could be easy to label them as a generic prog metal ripoff band. But Tyranny (as well as its sequel, 2005’s Room V) sets the band apart as legitimate contributors to the genre. I look forward to the third installment of the storyline, hopefully due out in the next year or two.

It’s Friday.  Not only does it herald the coming of the weekend, but it’s also my favorite day for music. Metal Messiah Radio has a show on Fridays that I look forward to during the week.

The show is called When Prog and Power Unite, and it’s an apt description of the music it offers. It’s a healthy mixing of energetic power metal and the heavier side of prog rock. It’s like a musical molotov cocktail, except that when it explodes, it brings awesomeness instead of destruction.

Okay, not a very good simile. Anyway, I enjoy listening because the show brings me a pretty good balance of stuff I already know and stuff I haven’t heard before. I get to hear some of my favorites mixed in with similar sounds that I might be interested in. The show also has a couple clever little special features, such as the Obligatory Ballad and the Essential Epic. The Ballad is a quick melodic breather that pays homage to the fact that even the most frenetic power metal bands like to kick back for a few minutes and deliver a slower, calmer performance. The Epic is kind of the opposite. It’s a nod to progressive bands’ prediliction for penning deliciously bombastic songs of monstrous proportions.

When Prog and Power Unite is streamed from Metal Messiah Radio on Fridays from 6 to 9 PM EST.

For previous setlists, reviews, requests, and more information, check out WPAPU’s website.

It’s been a busy year for Porcupine Tree.

Since the April 2007 release of Fear of a Blank Planet, the band have put out a followup mini-album in September (Nil Recurring) and, as of last week, have made a new live disc available.

We Lost the Skyline is a live release of an acoustic set performed in an Orlando, Florida music store. The tracklisting promises some of the band’s most beautiful mellow tracks, including “Even Less,” “Trains,” and “Lazarus.” “Lazarus” is currently available on Porcupine Tree’s official MySpace page, and it’s an excellent live arrangement of a fantastic song.

In my opinion, despite its release during a year which boasted a large number of great records, Fear of a Blank Planet emerged as the best album of 2007.  (For a periodically updated list of albums emerging as the best of 2008, click here.)  It’s filled with ambient soundscapes fused with progressive rock and a healthy dose of metal and the band manage to reconcile these different genres very well, offering something to fans of any kind of rock music. If you haven’t already done so, I’d strongly suggest buying Fear of a Blank Planet, Nil Recurring, and We Lost the Skyline. You won’t regret it.

They are all available at Porcupine Tree’s official online store.