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 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.

I have only just recently become aware that Dominici is planning to release their third studio album pretty soon.

From the bits and pieces I’ve been able to scrounge up about this act, it seems clear to me that this next release will be worth buying. They seem to be mainly a metal band with a healthy progressive edge, but with the rare ability to sidestep the usual prog trappings of bombast and cheesiness. While the concept of the O3 trilogy may have the proggish problem of being a bit overdramatic, what I’ve heard follows in the tradition of “Operation: Mindcrime” in that the lyrical drama is matched well enough by the music to make it work.

And those who may be familiar with frontman Charlie Dominici’s previous work with Dream Theater will be happy to know that his voice blends well with the prog-metal sound of his new band. The production is up to snuff, so there are no strained, fading “Killing Hand” moments. All in all, I’m excited about this. I might have to start amending my Top Ten Albums of 2008 sooner than I expected.

Dominici’s “O3: A Trilogy, Part 3″ is scheduled for release on April 22 by InsideOut.