This album was eagerly awaited by many progheads, and with good reason. The line-up alone is enough to get anyone interested, and I tend to have a standard rule of thumb that anything that involves Damian Wilson is worth investigating. The first time I saw Damian on stage was a solo artist with an acoustic guitar opening up for Shadowland and Jadis at the Marquee on the Lurve Ambassadors tour a million years ago, and since then I have been lucky enough to catch him in concert with other groups and have most of his recorded output. To my poor abused ears one of Rick Wakeman’s finest albums of his entire career is ‘Out There’, and who is the singer? Damian. But wait, there’s more, who is the bassist? Lee Pomeroy. The Wakeman connection doesn’t quite end there as drummer Richard Brooke has also played with Rick and is where he met the others. In fact you have to feel sorry for guitarist Pete Rinaldi as he is the only who hasn’t played with Rick – but at least now he is playing with his son as the keyboard player is none other than Adam Wakeman, who has well as being known for playing with his father has been with Ozzy for the last eight years and I can remember interviewing him years ago when he had the band Jeronimo Road. Now who could have been the singer with that band? Oh yes, that would have been Damian. It’s all very incestuous in the prog scene.
So given that we have world class musicians, songwriters, producers and singer would one expect an ordinary album? Of course not. Perhaps somewhat surprising is that the album is more metal oriented than one might expect with Adam’s presence, but given than he plays with the price of darkness and Damian fronts Threshold maybe not quite as much after all. But it isn’t all blasting guitars and riffs, one of the most effective songs is “Soldier” which is a poignant short number with Damian being accompanied mostly be gentle piano chords – the use of a tolling bell in the background is simple yet incredibly effective, taking the song to a whole new level of emotion and atmosphere.
“Daddy Fucking Loves You’ is based on a conversation that Damian had with a soldier, where the soldier told him of the time he was trying to describe to his young child why he had to go overseas and eventually he burst out with that statement in frustration. It is fifteen minutes long, and starts with gentle acoustic guitar and clear vocals, but it soon becomes a prog metal monster. The riffs sound as if they could have come from Fear Factory, not a prog act, and one can imagine a mosh pit going for this one – until Lee and Pete decide that they are going to lock horns and provide a load of complexity not normally associated with industrial metal. Dischords and jagged edges as the song twists and turns means that this takes on a life of its’ own as it cross musical boundaries and creates a huge statement.
It has taken these guys five years to produce their first album, something to do with them all being busy on other projects, let’s hope that it isn’t as long until the next one as this is the beginning of an incredible musical journey.
www.insideout.de
