TUG OF WAR

If you have been following Enchant's career, it is hard to miss the obvious Easter eggs the band have placed on the cover of their 7th full-length album, Tug of War. Images taken from all their previous albums appear in the picture, from the LP A Blueprint of the World LP placed at the feet of the mirror, to the iconic billiard-ball from Juggling 9 or Dropping 10 lying on the floor, to posters of Wounded and Blink of an Eye on the wall. When I first saw it, I wondered whether, by providing such retrospective, the band were trying to subtly tell fans time had arrived for curtain call. I was almost proved right given that after this album Enchant went into hibernation for 11 long years, before making a sporadic comeback in 2014 with the mediocre The Great Divide to then disband once again. So were Enchant planning to send us off on a high note or a low note?

Unfortunately, Tug of War continues the downward trajectory of Enchant's previous album Blink of an Eye and it is a further step down compared to their best works, 1998's Break and 2000's Juggling 9 or Dropping 10. The new material is actually not terribly different from the songs included on those albums, but feels less inspired and less compelling. The album's core sonic identity is once again a simplified form of progressive rock, where AOR and mainstream pop/rock aesthetics are weaved together with the influences of classic and modern prog greats (Rush, Kansas, Marillion, Spock's Beard) and reinterpreted with a hint of metallic bite (Dream Theater). Doug Ott's guitar plays predominantly a soft rhythmic role, with light chords and arpeggios, letting Ed Platt steer the material into more metallic directions with his meaty bass licks. Meanwhile, new keyboard player Bill Jenkins adds minimal texture with sound effects and keyboard chords and drummer Sean Flanegan focuses more on groove than rhythmic extravaganza.

The end result is a layered but unobtrusive texture that leaves a lot of space to singer Ted Leonard's vocal melodies. Alas, these are not very compelling because they often tend to be slightly too convoluted and rarely have immediate appeal. Partly, this may be due to the songs' complex harmonic developments, which leave Ted struggling to find good melodies to bridge the unorthodox chord progressions. This has been an unfortunate constant throughout the band's career, with the exception of Juggling 9 or Dropping 10 which stands as their most accessible and accomplished record to date.

Overall, Tug of War is not a bad record, but it isn't strong either. It is well played and well arranged, but its greatest drawback is that it dabbles in mostly harmless and generic progressive rock. The listening experience is far from compelling. Very few tracks standout, and they are mostly concentrated at the start ("Sinking Sand", "Holding the Wind") or end of the record (the proggy instrumental "Progtology", "Comatose"), which makes the middle part of the album quite challenging to go through. Longtime fans may still find enough good material to enjoy Tug of War, but if you are new to Enchant, you'd be better served by digging into their earlier - and superior - releases.