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.

Over the next few days, I’m going to present several albums that don’t get the kind of recognition I think they deserve. These five records are all fantastic, and throughout the week I’ll be paying them their well-earned respect. They won’t be offered in any strict order, but I tried to arrange them starting with the best known and ending with the most obscure.

Panorama (1980) 
The Cars

Panorama was actually pretty successful in its day, reaching number 5 on Billboard and eventually going platinum. But modern critics seem to view it as a blemish on an otherwise illustrious career. Many current fans of the Cars are casual listeners who simply enjoy the stuff they hear on classic rock radio.

But Panorama has a dark, experimental mood to it that is missing from most other Cars releases. From the groovy yet eerie intro on the title track to the desperate shrieks at the end of “Getting Through,” to the deceptively upbeat synth riff on “Up and Down,” the album is solid the whole way through. Because of the brooding, moodier texture to it, Panorama feels more genuine, possibly because Ric Ocasek’s unconventional, often dispassionate lyrics are finally matched by their musical backdrop. And that musical synergy offers a unique side of pop rock that I haven’t seen successfully recreated anywhere else.

The Cars’ eponymous debut and their 1984 release, Heartbeat City, are usually cited as the band’s high points. But The Cars is too influenced by the album-oriented hard rock of the seventies and Heartbeat City is too influenced by the synth-drenched new wave of the eighties. The best the Cars have to offer is Panorama, halfway between the beginning and the end of their sonic evolution. It’s both punk rock and synth rock, but it’s a perfect stylistic fusion of the two. It’s forty minutes of genius.