THE CHEMICAL CHAOS

Back with their fifth album, Poverty's No Crime show no signs of slowing down with yet another hard rocking set. While some of these songs probably come under the prog metal banner, there are other which are much more straightforward melodic hard rock. Opener "Walk Into Nowhere" is a good snapshot of the whole of the album ? there are times when it is riffing hard, times when it is soft and gentle, sometimes all of the band rocking hard and at others it is just vocals and acoustic guitar. All of the time it is keeping to a strong melody so that even though the music is flowing and changing it is very easy to listen to. This would be a great gig opener, as it would really pump up the crowd. But what makes this song for me is the small gap where a few finger popped bass notes make their appearance felt and linger ? it is small nuances that can really make a song.

Each song flows into the next, and the band is happy blasting along or just playing gently, but this never lasts for too long. On "Every Kind Of life" the guitars are blasting out while the keyboards gently follow the vocal melody, simple stuff but it works. Strong production helps the music to be captured at its' best, and the result is an album that is full of powerful songs and rocking guitars that anybody who enjoys prog metal will have to have in their collection. Superb.

Originally appeared in Feedback #78, April 2004