CONTROL AND RESISTANCE

I hadn't listened to this album in years until recently but I remember at the time of it's release being enticed to buy it as the idea of a band combining Metal with the more technical Progressive elements of music sounded too good to be true. I don't think the term Prog Metal had been invented then but that is the best way to describe this band and they were certainly one of the first to do it.

However I was disappointed with Control and Resistance, not least by the screeching Vocals of Alan Tecchio which I found totally irritating and tuneless. It's not that I disliked his particular style of singing as such; Geoff Tate from Queensrhyche for example sang in a similar histrionic style but still had strong vocal melodies. To be fair to the guy though, it can't have been easy coming up with melodies for the music here, which is equally lacking in melody. There's no doubting that the band are excellent musicians but it all comes across as a bit soulless and they seem to put a greater importance on technique and making the music as complicated as possible at the expense of a good memorable hook.

I'm not going to talk about tracks individually as none come across as memorable and each one seems to segue into the next without fanfare due to the aforementioned emphasis on technique over song structure. Once it is finished it is instantly forgotten. Perhaps I'm totally missing the point here, but as Dream Theater have proved since you can still have incredibly complex musical structures without losing a sense of melody.

Anyone wanting to check out the roots of Prog Metal may be interested to listen to this and full marks to the band for an innovative idea but unfortunately it falls short on musicality.