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Always looking forward with curiosity to all side projects of the
members of Dream Theater, and especially James Labrie is as busy as
a bee (a.o. with Frameshift and Ayreon). There never has been a
great unanimity about his vocal qualities, surely live he had some
weak performances due to several circumstances, but on his latest
solo album (this time released with his own name) he is definitely
at his best. And as always he has managed to surround himself by top
musicians, Mike Mangini on drums (Extreme, Annihilator), Matt
Guillory (Dali’s Dilemma) on keyboards, Bryan Beller (STEVE VAI) on
bass and a relatively unknown Italian rock-fusion guitar player
Sfogli, who follows Petrucci’s track. In a nutshell, on a musical
technical way everything is just fine, but the songs are well
written too. The cd has some 67 minutes of music, equally spread
over 12 tracks. So Labrie does not really follow the same procedure
of Dream Theater, you won’t find any long tracks. But this gives
amply the possibility to bring a lot of variation.
The album starts with an acoustic introduction a la Dream Theater,
next a heavy guitar riff followed by a guitar solo, which reminds me
of progressive metal fusion of Italian S&L (a coincidence?). But the
pace increases short hereafter and you can hear clearly some
Metallica influences, yet perhaps a bit less heavy than for instance
on ‘Train of Thoughts’. And from this first track Crucify it is
obvious that Sfogli is a real guitar virtuoso, you can hear a lot of
interesting and original guitar solos.
A
lot of special effects an electronic drums are used like on Alone, a
track close to gothic metal bands like Evanescence. And to be clear,
this is really a compliment, because very often you will get melodic
metal on this album, at the same time technically superb and yet
very catchy, not always a common combination. And Labrie you will
ask…well he seems perfectly in good voice, as well on the heavier
tracks as in the ballads. Because there is also room for softer
songs, in the poppy Smashed for instance he sings quiet and full of
emotion, the catchy ‘Lost’ is a nice rocker, which would get easily
in the charts. But finally most of the songs are based on a heavy
progressive metal, you can compare it with the better work of
Threshold and naturally also Dream Theater. Keyboards are not very
dominant but they play a good supporting role, the drummer is very
good, although not that overwhelming like Portnoy, but that’s not
necessary at all. But I was really enchanted by the guitar play of
Sfogli, how is it possible this guy is not better known in this
music business?
Labrie has delivered one of his best albums so far (perhaps even his
best), and full credit has to be given to him, because of his own
vocal talent, his choice of musicians, his strong compositions and
the variation on the album. And let’s be honest, I was not
immediately convinced after the first listening of ‘Elements of
Persuasion’, but afterwards there were enough elements to persuade
me ;-) |
