UNWRITTEN PAGES

It is doubtful that I will ever criticise an album that involves Karl and Damian as I am such a fan of both their works, but what lets this down is not the performance but the quality of the songs. This is prog metal, but it is disjointed in just so many ways. A good project album will feel either like a band, or a rock theatre production, yet this one falls between the two camps and comes across as disjointed and just way too over the top. It is too layered, too over produced, just too much altogether! There are bits that grab the attention, but for the most part it is about wondering how much longer this has to go, and whether now might be a time to switch to something else.

It's not awful, it's not bad, but I can't bring myself to say that it is anything more than good at best, and when looking at some of the people involved it just goes to show that the basis of any album must be the quality of the songs. If the foundation is shaky, then the structure is never going to be sound and stable. The only real positive about this is that now I've written about it I really don't have to play it again, and it is doubtful that I will.

And it appears that the brothers Epe and their companions have made good use of the two years that separate their first and second production. The name of the game is progressive metal, no alterations there as far as general tendencies are involved, but the band appears to have honed their sound and scope to emphasize the strengths of their contributors this time around, as well as avoiding some of the more well explored territories of the progressive metal genre as an additional bonus. Or to put it like this: While fans of bands lie Dream Theater will indeed find familiar details on this production, I find many of the compositions and effects used to be closer to the likes of Canadian trio Rush this time around. And if anyone should ever wonder why some people point out the importance of Rush to the development of progressive metal as a stylistic expression, this is one of the albums I'd pull out to document their influence.

The opening cinematic effort, as brilliant as it is in it's own right, is an exception however. More of a cinematic creation with voices and cosmic sounds establishing a distinct mood rather than an opening statement of the band's refined direction. But from second track Asylum Tragedy and onwards Unwritten Pages invites us into their universe anno 2012 with style and the occasional natural swagger that naturally develops when a band produce material of the highest quality and can feel the magic flowing. Asylum Tragedy and Perfect Incentive the two occasions I'd highlight as the highlights of this production in that context, a perfect blend of calmer passages and harder edged, energetic sequences. Slightly unpredictable as is often the case with material of the highest quality, and compositions well planned to utilize the lead vocals as much as possible too. The vocal duties are credited to the Epe trio on this production, and while I haven't checked which of them handle the individual parts on this disc I generally found them to be pleasant, struggling slightly when the instrumental backing gets to be too demanding, as in final piece Auxiliary Influx. By and large the songs have been set up to emphasize their vocalists good sides however, and the aforementioned two songs are among the best in that department too, which adds an additional sheen to compositions that in creation and performance already are of the highest quality.

As this production unfolds the associations towards Canadian trio Rush grow steadily stronger. First and foremost due to the guitars, as the hard edged compact riff patterns used makes it hard not to get associations towards the likes of Alex Lifeson. And I'd suspect that the main guitarist of Unwritten Pages also have a bit of jazz knowledge, as I often caught myself associating towards funk and jazzrock too, but more in the faint traces and resonance department rather than a strong and distinct vibes one.

Otherwise the compositions are well made in terms of balance throughout. Calmer passages and pace-filled energetic ones come and go, as elongated features dividing the compositions into a few distinctly different parts or placed side by side in a nifty, logical and well flowing manner. Impact riffs and majestic arrangements are used sparingly and to very good effect, up to and including an instance where the portal to the dark and bleak universe of doom metal opens for a brief one-off visit.

If Unwritten Pages are among the bands that manage to establish themselves properly and carve out a good and long career out of their love of music, I suspect that their debut "Noah" will be referenced as the promising and ambitious first effort and "Fringe Kitchen" as the follow-up disc that showcase a talented act that show a fine and distinct positive development. To the point that I'd recommend fans of progressive metal in general to investigate this production, as I'm pretty sure that Unwritten Pages anno 2012 is a band that will be found interesting to the greater majority of fans of this style of music.

The reason for my rant is the mere fact that it feels so refreshing to actually hear a great Progressive Metal concept album that doesn't rely on the well-established clichés of the past/present and manages to move things forward. This is exactly what Frederic Epe and his backing musicians manage to achieve on Noah! This entire album is filled with music that will hijack your mind from the first time you'll hear it and will continue to grow until you'll master this 80+ minute beast. This is at least what happened to me; I started off listening to Noah with the bare minimum expectations imaginable but was met with such a versatile album that I just couldn't get it out of my head for weeks and felt like refreshing that memory every now and then in the process!

There is really no reason for me to go into detail about the individual tracks since Noah should only be heard in its entirety. This might actually be considered somewhat of a drawback due to the album's hefty length that reaches just above the regular size of one CD. Once an artist/band releases this much material, the results are bound to vary in quality. Hopefully, the individual moments are developed just enough to hold all the pieces of the puzzle together and thus create quite a solid and fluent piece of music.

If you're a fan of conceptual Progressive Metal then you should already have this album in your collection since this is an essential piece of storytelling that can be compared to Pain of Salvation's Be and Dream Theater's Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory. Seriously, stop wasting your and my time and get this album already!

***** star songs: Prologue (This New World) (5:36) Solar Blast (6:46) Falling Stars (8:24)

**** star songs: The Boy Is Awake (3:42) In the Name Of Ishmael (7:36) Royalty & Conspiracies (6:31) Red Ashes (The Privilege of War) (3:02) Blowing Red Ashes Pt.I (3:45) The Uranium Machine (5:16) Unexpected Twists & Turns (3:25) These Haunted Days (4:14) Blowing Red Ashes Pt.II (6:13) Flora & ..(4:45) Life (5:27)

*** star songs: Deimos Theme (6:58)

With "Part I: Noah", Unwritten Pages have launched their initial effort with a fairly ambitious rock opera. And while not quite the finished article, this is a rather enjoyable effort. If science fiction-based concepts and progressive metal sounds like a good mix to you, this is a double CD that just might be of interest, especially if you are the type of person who will listen to the music with the CD booklet in hand, following the lyrics and the story explored with close attention.