ANIMATIONS

Sonic Maze

ANIMATIONS is a young prog metal team, previously known as LABYRINTH.PL. In 2006, they rleased critically acclaimed promo EP. The band encouraged by those reviews was literally forced by fans to record a full length studio album. In 2007, the band recorded their first official LP and changed their name to ANIMATIONS. Their self-titled, self-produced album in the end was also self-released as none interesting label offer was proposed to the band.

The album contains high-speed intrumental prog-metal, strongly influenced by bands like Liquid Tension Experiment, Dream Theater or Planet X. It's 69 minutes of virtuosity, which can be a bit tiring particularly the tracks aren't very varied. Apart from the lack of originality, the album is very energetic, the band is eager to play and that energy and passion are really infecting the listener.

I'm impressed that there's such a great band literally next to the city I used to live. If you love high octane, high-speed technical prog-jazz-fusion-metal (Liquid Tension Experiment etc.), just get this album!

Very promising debut. 4 stars from me. Shred!

"Animations" is the eponymously titled debut full-length studio album by Polish progressive metal act Animations. The album was independently released in July 2007. Animations formed under the labyrinth.pl monicker in 2006 but opted to change their name to the current one in 2007. On this debut album Animations are a quartet.

The music on "Animations" is fully instrumental and in many ways pretty close to the instrumental sections on Dream Theater´s music but maybe more correctly the music sounds very influenced by Liquid Tension Experiment (at times the bass even sounds like a Chapman stick). The technical level of the musicianship on the album is simply astonishing. I want to emphasise that these guys can play and I mean really play their instruments. There are several jaw dropping moments on the album. So that part of the album is world class.

There are some slight issues with the album though, and it´s not something excellent musicianship can fix. First of all this is a hard album to get through. 60 minutes of demanding intrumental music is probably a bit much to many ears (this won´t be a problem for some, so consider this a minor complaint). My second complaint is that the songs don´t stick that well in my head. It helps with repeated listens but sometimes I get the feeling that the songs are made to show off and not to evoke an emotional response from the listener. I simply miss some emotions and maybe a little less technical noodling (they just never let up, and there are next to no breathers for the duration of the album). Be it anger, melancholy, happiness or whatever. The music unfortunately leaves me a bit cold.

The production is professional and well sounding. A bit sterile and cold maybe but definitely professional. Quite the achivement for an independently released album.

I know I´m a bit harsh in my evaluation of this album, but being a virtuoso musician obligates and while "Animations" is full of challenging performances and the above mentioned jaw dropping moments, the lack of memorable songwriting is an issue. "Animations" is still a greatly enjoyable album in small portions though and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

(Originally posted on Metal Music Archives).