MINOR COMPLEXITIES

Minor Complexities is the debut album from American heavy prog band Contrarian. Heavy Prog is exactly the right catagory for Contrarian as they are basically a symphonic hard rock band with progressive tendencies here and there.

The album starts with Operation Overlord and the violin from Lance Cockrell imidiately reminds me of Kansas. I also hear a few Rush influences ( very few) on some of the later songs but the music on Minor Complexities is very hard rock driven. Lots of keyboards and synths from Timothy G. Boney but with an emphasis on the heavy guitars. Sometimes it´s so heavy that I even think fans of the hard rock styled progressive metal genre will find listening pleasure here. A good example of that is the 10:15 minutes long Fear and Trembling which does more than touch progressive metal. Joseph L. Leming is a very skilled singer and if you like hard rock singers like Ian Gillian or David Coverdale you´ll probably love his voice.

The musicianship is excellent. This might be a debut album but don´t be fooled these musicians are very accomplished and experienced.

The production is good but nothing special.

So I guess it comes down to the question of how much you like your progressive rock to be hard rock influenced. Personally this is not my taste, but I can still hear that Minor Complexities is a good album. I´ll rate the album 3 stars and it´s only because of my lack of interest in the genre that I will not reward it with a fourth star. The music is of very high quality.