BLOOD OF THE SNAKE

Derek Sherinian's Blood of the Snake is, so far, the third and last of his solo albums I have put in my collection and that is for a quite relevant reason: on his 2006 release, the Californian keyboardist change gears and goes straight to progressive metal, instead of the mindblowing jazz fusion of his first two solo albums. Don't get me wrong, Blood of the Snake still has noticeable jazz influences all over it, but the focus of the album is NOT the jazzman side of Sherinian, that is for sure. Possibly being part of Billy Idol's band and composing most of the album with drummer Brian Tichy have affected in the album's final form.

The firsts songs of the album pretty much set the tone for the whole album: jazzy heavy metal songs (AKA prog metal), straight heavy metal songs and a ballad here and there. There are few songs that can actually be called a jazz song, being those the fourth song, called Been Here Before, which sound like a reinterpretation of the Dream Theater song Take Away My Pain from the Falling Into Infinity album, and the sixth song, called On The Moon.

The whole album manages to keep a great overall song quality and is very well balanced, which means that it does not have a specific part that is better than the other or a clearly heavy or soft part. It pleasantly spins from start to finish. The only exception is the Ray Dorset cover In The Summertime, which isn't special at all. After the last song there is a perios of silence and then a suuuper secret track with Derek and his friends partying the completion of Blood of the Snake.

Grade and Final Thoughts

What can I say, a good album deserves a good grade acordingly. Just keep in mind that this album is metal-driven. 4 stars.

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