KEEP IT TO YOURSELF

Like everyone else I bought this album because James Labrie ( Dream Theater) is the lead vocalist in Mullmuzzler. At the time I swallowed everything Dream Theater related, and I remember that I liked this Keep It To Yourself, without ever being too impressed. It´s about the same feeling I have today when listening to Keep It To Yourself.

The music is symphonic prog rock and links can obviously be made to the more simple Dream Theater songs. I also hear influences from bands like Extreme and Foreigner. Songs like Beelzebubba and As A Man Thinks could have been Extreme songs of of the Three Sides to Every Story album. Beelzebubba has a pretty funky brass arrangement so as you can read there is great variation on the album. Personally I like the more Dream Theater inspired songs the best. Songs like His Voice, Statued and Lace.

The musicians here are all very good. Mike Keneally who played with Zappa plays guitar on Keep It To Yourself and Drummer Mike Magnini who played with Steve Vai plays the drums on the album. This means that you can´t help being impressed with the playing as these musicians are outstanding. James Labrie sounds like he always does. So nothing new under the sun there.

The sound quality is very good even though it could have been a bit more personal, but I guess this is typical for project bands.

All in all this is a good album, but really nothing special in my eyes and I would recommend picking up any Dream Theater album over this one at any time. 3 stars for a solid performance and some good compositions. Extreme fans might get satisfaction out of this one.