LIGHT OF DAY, DAY OF DARKNESS

I have to give these guys (er., this guy - Tchort) credit. This is a superbly produced piece of progressive art. I'm not sure if it is actually progressive metal or something else, but it doesn't really matter I suppose. For older guys like me the words progressive and metal usually conjure up pictures of Ronnie James Dio and Ritchie Blackmore and "Lady of the Lake", so I'm probably not the right person to make that call anyway.

I picked this up at the recommendation of a friend after rambling on to him about how much I liked Ayreon's Human Equation. I'm not sure what this friend felt the connection was to this album, as I don't see one, but it's a great bit of music anyway. Conceived as a single contiguous work, the song fills the entire CD with no interruptions. Unlike albums like The Wall or Human Equation though, this one isn't even subdivided into smaller palatable portions, which is probably my only beef. While the overall composition is definitely worthy of an uninterrupted session, it's not the kind of record you're likely to put on for a casual listen, so it doesn't get played too often in my house.

Like I said the sound is largely metal with pretty strong progressive overtones, but there are a few interesting deviations. Around the middle is a short stretch of melodic male vocals with a driving, almost hair-band rhythm and a straightahead beat that is actually quite catchy. Unfortunately this is followed by about five minutes of what I believe is an oboe in a kind of hash-inspired dirge with some crazy chick chant-singing in a combination of accented English and gibberish. That's where the song seek would have come in handy.

The next few minutes feature a male voice that gets almost annoyingly close to launching into gutteral screech vocals, but manages to stay just this side of discernable before the guitars fade into that kind of tense and barely controlled tempo that bands like Opeth and some later Fates Warning do so well. The petered-out ending into a twisted kind of children's lullaby makes for a bit of a strange finish, but the experience is worth an hour of your time every now and then.

I guess I'm not really sure what this album is all about lyrically, but I have to say that it is one of the most interesting listens in the progressive metal category I have heard outside of some of the Ayreon albums in quite some time. A definite excellent addition to just about any collection. Four stars.

peace