FREE

I am not allowed to give "0" stars rating, I am not allowed to use rude and abusive language when reviewing an album, therefore I am very limited by the site's rules in expression of all my disgust by this album.

This is work of two highly acclaimed persons in progressive music - namely famous Kevin Moore (first DT keyboardist) and Jim Matheos (leading force of Fates Warning). I enjoyed very much the first album they made together, leaving alone their works in DT, FW, and solo projects, all of which are ranging between good and excellent (except for the latest works of Kevin in Croma Key, which are very monotonous in the same way and somewhat close to this particular album in question). What we have here with "Free" is very different to all these two musicians had done before, and it's also very different from what I could expect from them. I personally think that this music has nothing to do with prog what so ever, I'd rather call it regressive all the way. I am not into categorization , but even if I was, it would be very difficult for me to tell which musical genre it is - it sounds like alternative meets rap with metal influences. Vocals are just downright bad through out - he is just mumbling something with stupid distorted voice. He probably thinks it's very "cool" to sing in such a manner, but I beg to differ. Main disc of Special Edition contains 11 tracks of hardly listenable musical material. The only good thing about it is that it's comparatively short - about 48 minutes, but even this length of an album seemed endless to me. Absolutely uninspiring, dull and boring, but at times aggressive (in a rap style of aggressiveness), at times ambient electronic, setting you in a very sleepy mood, but then suddenly you are waken up with loud but primitive heavy metal guitar riff, heard hundreds time before. Vocal melodies are so childishly simplistic, that can be laughable at. Actually it's difficult to describe this music in more details, as there are practically no details to describe. I am not listening to this kind of music at all, therefore I can hardly compare it with anything, but it seems like I could have heard some of this kind on MTV or something. All in all, this album shows absolute lack of any musical ideas and total absence of any creativity from any member of the band. It's a shame that musicians of such high standards produce such rubbish. And "to add insult to the injury" they made it double CD set Special Edition, with Bonus disc, containing 6 tracks summing upto 20 minutes of similar stuff, but even worse than main one. I consider this album as pure money making exercise, as otherwise they could easily fit all material into one CD and sell it at half price just promoting new "musical direction" in their careers.

As I am typing this in, I am listening (again) to the one-before-last track from Bonus disc. It's called "Remain Calm", - I wish I bloody could....

Avoid this album, unless you are an absolutely die-hard fan of Moore and Matheos, and ready to praise to the skies any garbage they might have courtesy to produce.