Anyone who's a regular reader of my journal (yes, both of you!) will know that I am most of the time firmly mired in the seventies or eighties: my album reviews rarely stray from that period, and I consider those two decades to be the best for music --- not surprising, since the seventies encapsulated my early teens and my adolescence was spent in the eighties.
But all of that is about to change. Well, for a while anyway. In this section I'll be reviewing a current album, an album from this year. I hope to make this a weekly thing, but we'll see. At any rate, it will certainly be more up-to-date than my usual reviews and features. Not that there's anything wrong with them, of course, but once in a while it helps to pop your head over the parapet and check what decade you're in. This section will bring me (perhaps kicking, perhaps screaming) at least temporarily into the twenty-first century, before I dart back to the safety of 80s metal and 70s prog, and all the stuff I like to listen to from days gone by, as it were.
A place where the sun is silent --- Alesana --- 2011 (Epitaph)
And we couldn't come more bang up-to-date than this album, released only two weeks ago! I know nothing of this band, and the thing that drew me to their latest album was, believe it or not, a combination of the title and the sleeve. I mean, how more seventies prog rock can you get?
As it happens, this band are
not a progressive rock band, though they are a rock band. Lucky for me: in searching for new albums to download I came across one called “Songs of the ungrateful living” by an outfit called Everlast. Sounds metal, yeah? Sounds prog, maybe? Wrong: it's a rap group. Now I have nothing against rap, but it's not my bag, so there's an example of being led by your heart (or in this case, your eyes) and not listening to your head. I could have downloaded the album and then been really disappointed. So I checked out Alesana before I clicked the button, listened to some samples, and what I heard made me happy enough to get the album, which I will now review for the first time here.
But first, a little about the band behind the album.
The first, and most striking thing about Alesana is that they have
three vocalists and three guitarists. Interesting. One of the vocalists, Dennis Lee, is credited as “unclean vocals”, and as I've heard some samples where those bloody “death growls” I hate so much come in, I have to assume that's what's meant by that description. The full current lineup is as follows:-
Shawn Mike --- “clean” vocals, rhythm guitar, piano
Patrick “Peezee” Thompson --- lead guitar
Alex Torres --- lead guitar
Shane Crump --- bass guitar, backing vocals
Dennis Lee --- “unclean” vocals
Jeremy Bryan --- drums
Perhaps I'm the only person who doesn't know about these guys, and you'll all be shaking your heads, clucking your tongues and saying to each other in knowing tones, “Where has this guy
been?” but so be it if that's the case: this is the first I have ever heard of Alesana, so I'm going to come at them from that perspective.
This is their fourth album, their debut having been released in 2006, although they had an EP the previous year which apparently got them noticed. They seem to create concept, or at least themed albums, each time. Their first was based on Greek mythology, their second on the fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, and their third loosely around the work of Edgar Allan Poe. This time, their focus is on Dante's “Inferno”. So not your usual “rock all night” fare then!
So, to the album. It certainly opens very prog-rock, even folkish, with lilting piano and soft vocal on opener “The dark wood of error”, and you could almost think you were listening to the likes of Mostly Autumn, perhaps touches of Kamelot in the spoken (Italian? Latin?) lines that accompany the music, almost like narration, but then second track “A forbidden dance” kicks in, and ups the ante with a powerful rocker, and you can right away get the impact of those three guitars. I would of course, as those who know my musical tastes will not be surprised to hear, be happier not to hear the “unclean” vocals of Dennis Lee screaming all over the place. I've never seen the point in them personally, and if anything they seem totally at odds with the music and the other vocals in the song, not quite ruining it for me, but I'd be definitely happier without them. Still, there's a sort of Lostprophets feel to them, and they're not as bad as others I've briefly suffered through.
The rest of the song is great though: excellent hooks, great melody, and the “clean” vocals of lead singer Shawn Mike certainly have a lot to recommend them. “Hand in hand with the damned” is another rocker, carried of course on sharp and powerful guitars, with solid drumming, and it quickly becomes apparent how tight this band is, switching from mad triple electric guitar attack to lovely, understated acoustic at the drop of a plectrum, never missing a beat. Hard to believe they've only been together for seven years.
It's not surprising that they're garnering a hell of a following though, on the basis of the music presented here (and I haven't heard anything from their previous three albums), as “Beyond the sacred glass” slips in almost unnoticed from the previous track, riding on a moody, atmospheric keyboard intro before the guitars kick in. It's the longest song on the album, at just over six minutes, quickly metamorphosing into another fast headbanger, with shades of Iron Maiden in there in some of the guitar work. It's the first track where I hear the “clean” and “unclean” vocals mesh and start to actually complement each other, and to be fair when that happens it works quite well.
And then suddenly everything slows down as electric yields to acoustic guitar, and a lovely piano melody takes over, overlaid with some really fine soloing which, while not shredding or anything close, is just as effective, if not more so. Almost Santana in its style, I feel. The tempo picks up again and the song gets rocking again to the end. Probably could have lived without the sudden, jarring abrupt ending to so sublime a track, though.
Like many concepts, it's a little hard to follow the story if you aren't familiar the source material, and let's be honest, not too many of us will have struggled though “The Inferno”. I tried, but found it a little dry and replete with too many references to Italian society and politics, but I have a basic idea, like most people, of the work. Nonetheless, it's a little hard then to marry up the songs to the story, but “Circle VII: Sins of the lion” does at least mention the seventh of the nine circles of Hell, and is suitably bombastic and operatic in its execution to give you a good idea of travelling through Satan's kingdom.
“Vestige”, on the other hand, returns to the style of the opener, with simple piano and clean vocals, and there's little doubt that there are female backing vocals in there somewhere, but I can't find a credit for the unknown songstress anywhere, not even on the band's own website (which is sorely in need of an update --- the discography doesn't even contain this album!), while “Lullaby of the crucified” kicks up the speed again after the brief interlude, with an interesting choppy guitar part in the middle, spoken, almost tannoy-like vocals echoing in the background while the guitars get more insistent and louder, until they punch out of the song and take over again.
There's no doubting the musical talent of these guys, even though from the picture on their home page you'd take them all for members of the college chess club. Guitarists Patrick Thompson and Alex Torres certainly know how to ply their trade, and while Shawn Mike adds in rhythm guitar along with lead vocals, he's really proficient on the piano, letting those fingers glide across the ivories and adding a real sense of the classical to Alesana's music. Most of it is basic fast rock though, and as I mentioned, reminds me very much of the Lostprophets, even the way Mike sings. But that's no bad thing. There's definitely more than a hint of Maiden in the guitar attack, which again is a compliment and not a criticism.
A nice little laid-back, semi-jazzy part is unexpected but welcome in “Labyrinth”, which runs without pause or change into “The Fiend”, where Dennis Lee comes across very well as the Dark One, growling and roaring like a man possessed. To be honest, his “low” unclean vocals are much better and more effective I think than his “high”, screaming, throat-searing yells and roars. The former I could listen to more easily, whereas the latter really, to me, just seems to be screaming for the sake of making noise. Hey, I
said I hated death vocals, didn't I?
There's another supersmooth segue directly into “Welcome to the Vanity faire”, and if I have a criticism --- or indeed, just an observation --- about this album it's that there is, so far, no clear-cut ballad. No, every album does not have to have one, but considering the style of music Alesana are producing, and the largely untapped talent of Shawn Mike on the piano, I feel a nice slow song would be good to hear, as everything so far has been, generally, loud and fast, though certainly not without melody and not without a great deal of thought obviously having gone into both lyrics and music. It would just be nice to rest for a while, put our feet up on our way through Hell and take a breather.
Well, “The wanderer” comes close, a nice piano-led slower piece, with some very nice female backing vocals, but it's only a minute and a half long: I would have liked this to have been expanded on, to see what Alesana can do when they try something a little less, shall we say, hectic? Manic, even. “A gilded masquerade” starts off promisingly, but soon kicks into the usual fast rock song. A good song, nothing wrong with it, but like I say, a proper ballad would have been nice. If nothing else though, the album is great value for money, with the closer, “And now for the final illusion” clocking in as track number sixteen, with only two of those being a minute or shorter.
It's a good and effective closer, with a feeling of epilogue about it. Great mass vocals, with pretty much the same melody running through from beginning to end, very sparse lyric --- apart from the opening muttered monologue, I only hear the one phrase --- then a very nice piano piece with what sounds like the title of the album murmured over it to the end.
I don't really know what it is that makes Alesana stand out from the pack: perhaps it's the unusual effect of having three guitarists and three vocalists, maybe the classical piano or the progressive rock flavoured themes. It could even be the “unclean” vocals of Dennis Lee, which to be fair do add a huge amount of energy to songs that are never dull, slow or boring, but do get something of a kick from his manic screams and growls. Whatever it is, it seems certain these guys are going to be around for a long time, so my advice is check them out, but make sure you have a guide. Unlike AC/DC wrote many years ago, Hell
is a bad place to be.
TRACKLISTING
1. The dark wood of error
2. A forbidden dance
3. Hand in hand with the damned
4. Beyond the sacred glass
5. The Temptress
6. Circle VII: Sins of the Lion
7. Vestige
8. Lullaby of the crucified
9. Before him all shall scatter
10. Labyrinth
11. The Fiend
12. Welcome to the Vanity Faire
13. The Wanderer
14. A gilded masquerade
15. The best laid plans of mice and marionettes
16. And now for the final illusion
So that's my first album from
this year reviewed. Interesting stuff. As I said, I'll try to make sure I run this section once a week, but who knows? With other commitments and time constraints, that may not be possible, but I will make certain that I review at least one new album per month. Next time it'll be something totally different, just to keep things fresh.
And now, back to the eighties I go!
