RockRoast

A Silver Mt. Zion’s most recent release, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, has one of the most unconventional tracklistings I’ve seen in a while. The first twelve tracks are untitled and serve as a brief introduction to track thirteen and the four substantial tracks on the record.

13 Blues is pretty much par for the course as far as post-rock is concerned, although its use of vocals is a bit adventurous. Even though the song “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” contains a very well-layered vocal arrangement, for the most part, the vocals suffer from disuse and misuse. A Silver Mt. Zion seems to treat the human voice as just another instrument. As such, instead of carrying a melodic tune, the voice is used to produce the same repetition, dissonance, and occasional blandness as the rest of the instruments in the band. This kind of thing can work with a guitar or a violin, but with a voice, it becomes annoying very quickly. The title track is good evidence of this, as the flat, repetitive vocals tarnish an otherwise polished song.

The lyrics, penned by guitarist Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor fame, are abstract and impenetrable. Menuck manages to get across his anger and frustration and radicalism without ever actually making any sense, a feat that could is both admirable and idiotic.

Other than the vocals and lyrics, the 13 Blues seems to have the advantages and drawbacks typical of most post-rock. The songs suffer from lengthy compositions that can lose the listener’s interest in places and the occasional dissonances are at times too ugly to be effective. However, the music has obviously been arranged with care, and the haunting, beautiful introductions invariably build powerfully to dramatic climaxes that can make the boredom and cringing of the last ten minutes totally worth it.

Although two of the songs are relatively weak, the tracks “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” and “Blindblindblind” make the album worthy of a few listens. But in the end, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons is far from a masterpiece and far from an abomination.

Buy it if: you like post-rock, you rebel against everything popular, or you don’t mind waiting ten minutes for a song to finally get around to blowing you away.

Score: 5/10

Available at Amazon.com

Top Albums of 2008 To Date

Ever since I heard Marco Sfogli was working on a solo project, I’ve been excited to hear it. Although his work was kind of hit-and-miss on James LaBrie’s Elements of Persuasion, Sfogli had his moments of brilliance. I was looking forward to see what he had to offer as a solo artist.

There’s Hope is an instrumental album, featuring a series of interesting arrangements in which Sfogli’s guitar takes the lead. And the album actually displays a surprising amount of variety. The title track has a bit of a heavy metal in it, while “Spreading the Disease” explores groove rock, “Never Forgive Me” is reminiscent of a soft rock love ballad, and “Texas BBQ,” obviously, carries considerable country influence.

The guitar seems to act as a substitute for a singer, and the melodies crafted by Sfogli’s strings capture an unfortunate range from good to bad. “Memories” has what is perhaps the most melodic, emotional guitar work. But in the case of “Seven,” the melody is aimless and deprives itself of its own context by drowning out the piano arrangement behind it. Another frequent problem is the guitar tone, which is regrettable on several occasions. On “Sunset Lights” and “Andromeda,” Sfogli’s distortion kicks in at all the wrong times, marring the peaceful, beautiful atmospheres of the songs. Odd keyboard patches on “Sunset Lights” and “Genius” also distract the listener from the heart and soul of the music. But as far as complaints go, that’s about all I’ve got.

It’s particularly refreshing that There’s Hope gives Sfogli a chance to express his softer side, in contrast to the bulk of his work on Elements of Persuasion. And he does a fine job, too. Though the album has some problems, as a whole it’s made me respect him a bit more as a musician, and I look forward to his work in the future. Especially since he’s rumored to have been working on another album with James LaBrie.

Perhaps the most convincing praise I can give the record is by mentioning the video I posted a few weeks ago. It’s an impressive performance, but the song it’s taken from didn’t wind up being one of the best on the record. So I can promise you there’s stuff even better than this on There’s Hope.

Best Performance: Marco Sfogli, obviously. He’s the guitarist, in case you hadn’t heard.

Buy it if: You don’t mind instrumental music, you’re a fan of Elements of Persuasion, or you’re going on a 49-minute drive sometime soon.

Rating: 6/10

Available at LionMusic.com

Also check out the running list of best 2008 albums for updates.

Until recently, I had passed Dominici over as just some prog metal band that I didn’t really expect to like. But as hype began to gather around its upcoming third record, I took a keener interest. Their singer and namesake, Charlie Dominici (best known as the original vocalist for Dream Theater), was generous enough to send me a promotional copy of O3: A Trilogy – Part 3. I went in expecting a few good songs and a few bad songs, but what I heard contained a surprising level of consistency.

King of Terror is a great opener, beginning with a beautifully haunting introduction. The peace is eventually shattered by a crunching guitar riff that drives the remainder of the song. Unfortunately the lush introduction is better than the heaviness that follows. The chorus, however, packs a powerful enough punch to keep you interested during the less exciting verses. Singer Charlie Dominici dominates “King of Terror” with a growling vocal that even the celebrated Russell Allen of Symphony X would have to cock an eyebrow at.

March Into Hell has one of the best riffs on the entire disc. The riff is used to its full potential, particularly to set up a nice groove behind the section of spoken words. Skeptics of Charlie Dominici’s performance on Dream Theater’s When Dream and Day Unite can put their fears to rest with this song, as it shows Dominici’s vocals blending perfectly with the metal mayhem behind him. “March Into Hell” is also the proud owner of some great atmospherics from keyboardist Americo Rigoldi and admirable guitar work on the outro.

So Help Me God reeks of a band intentionally trying to write a power ballad. It’s cheesy and overdramatic. But it also happens to be my favorite song on the record. I consider the song a huge risk on the band’s part, because it sounds like Dominici is selling out. But I think the emotional string sounds from Rigoldi’s keyboard were what rescued the song from the endless annals of cheesy ballads. This success is compounded by Charlie Dominici’s fantastic performance on one of the album’s best melodies. Drummer Yan Maillard wisely made the decision to rein his performance in a bit to match the feel of the song. This makes his more extravagant fills seem all the more impressive if only because of their scarcity. Despite the risk that the song represents, “So Help Me God” pulls at the heartstrings. The band has my respect for making it work.

Liquid Lightning is a song bursting with uncultivated promise. All the music on it is decent, but a bland melody brings the song down. The choruses are where everything finally comes together, but immediately afterward the listener is subjected to another verse before getting back to the good stuff. Despite the lackluster melody, however, the entire song oozes an infectious energy that makes it engaging.

Enemies of God offers some impressive rhythmic unisons between the Maillard brothers on drums and guitar. During one of the softer interludes, Riccardo Atzeni’s bass work surges to the forefront of the mix, giving him an opportunity to shine. The song also contains two sections of spoken word, the first of which is somewhat distracting. The second however, aids the slow, dramatic build to the song’s climax. “Enemies of God” is also interesting for its lyrical dichotomy, as it contains some of the lamest and cleverest lines of the whole album.

Revelation is an oddly forgettable song. If the title weren’t a key word in the chorus, I’m not sure I’d be able to remember much about the song at all without listening to it again. But it has good music delivered with great energy. My only complaint is Brian Maillard’s lightning-fast guitar solo. I’ve been paying attention the whole time, pal. I already know you can play like crazy. I’d prefer a nice melodic solo to an aimless flurry of notes. And based on some of the other solos I’ve just heard, I know you definitely have it in you.

Hell On Earth sees the story reach a point of no return, and the music does a fantastic job of mirroring the gravity of the situation represented in the lyrics. Americo Rigoldi excels once again, particularly in his contribution to the dark feel of the song. Charlie Dominici, unfortunately, seems to need to clear his throat, and his voice is sadly underutilized throughout the track. But as the song hits its climax and the horrible deeds of destruction are carried out within the lyrics, I have to say this song gives me the chills.

Genesis, most plainly, blew my mind. The ending of the story was not something I was expecting, and it had some pretty clever concepts in it (As far as the story goes, it’s what might have happened if Ayreon had done Operation: Mindcrime instead of Queensryche). “Genesis” is the last song on the record and it seems as though each performer is taking his bows. Charlie Dominici is in peak form, delivering the final lines with style. Rigoldi and Brian Maillard play off each other very well throughout this ten-minute epic. Yan Maillard’s performance demands respect as he guides the band through numerous sections of frenetic music. And Atzeni, though present and consistent throughout the album, gets one last solo about halfway through the final song. I kind of wish the first four and a half minutes could have been cut out and made an instrumental track between “Hell On Earth” and the rest of “Genesis,” but that’s really all there is to complain about. And that is more than counteracted by one the most unbelievably epic endings to an album I have ever heard. The conclusion of “Genesis” rivals the greatness of Dream Theater’s “Octavarium” and Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse.” It leaves me breathless.

Besides its perfect ending, O3 Part 3 spends most of its duration wandering halfway between mediocrity and greatness. Hardly anything on the album is average or bland, but the moments of true brilliance are somewhat isolated. Most of those moments are from individual performers, and the times that the entire band strikes gold simultaneously are few. O3 Part 3 sounds like the product of a promising band that is still—if you’ll pardon a cheesy lyric-related pun—searching for its chemistry. But despite a limited number of truly fantastic moments, the record is consistently good enough to earn significant replay value. And it sounds a little better every time.

Best performance: Americo Rigoldi, keyboards. Although I felt he was often buried in the mix, Rigoldi seemed to anchor the band’s sound when it was most needed.

Worst performance: Everybody else. Seriously, everybody did a great job, only Rigoldi did a little bit better than all of his bandmates.

Buy it if: You’re a fan of metal, you’re a fan of prog, or you don’t want to miss out on good music.

Score: 8/10

O3: A Trilogy - Part 3 will be released on April 22nd by InsideOut. It doesn’t appear to be available for preorder at the moment.

Dominici’s Official Website, which streams “March Into Hell.”