Planet X - Quantum [2007] (Instrumental Progressive Metal, Shred, fusion)
Lable : Inside Out
I give credit to Sherinian, he has thought up some interesting bits, and managed to shore himself quite a career working with several key musicians (Alice Cooper, Dream Theater, Malmsteen, etc...). But as good a doppelganger Sherinian is, he is quite terrible at producing consistent material.
Quantum, Planet X's latest in a series of efforts to one-up Dream Theater, is a noticable step down from their MacAlpine-era stuff, as the heavy-footed neoclassical shredder's darkened influence is missing from this. As a general rule, these songs will impress you upon first listen due to their technicality. The thing is, upon more and more listens, with the exception of perhaps Space Foam, there's no lasting impression created in your psyche. While extensive use of odd time signatures is in play, they aren't used very well, almost as if Sherinian just wanted to put them in there to show that his band can play in 12321321/512421321. Whatever the reason, the music comes off as disjointed and fragmented. You can listen to this a thousand times and still not remember a good part of the album.
Again, like the band Sherinian was trying to one up with Planet X, I am not doubting the talent of the involved musicians. Quite the opposite, I am doubting the ability of Sherinian to use all this talent appropriately and tastefully. Several songs make extensive use of such modern prog-metal cliche's such as making 1/2 step chord progressions along 2-2-3 or 2-2-3-3 or 3-3-3-4 times (7/8, 10/8, and 13/16 respectively) as well as decaying into what sounds like elevator music on mescaline. Sure, it's interesting at first, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a real lack of metal-inspired aggression here, as well as something that is central to progressive music -- progression. Each song is little more than a foil for the solos, and as a result the songs meander, have a solo break, meander more, have another solo break, then close the song with no real conclusion, no real progression of ideas, just a foil for wankery.
Remember kids, just because you can play a lot of notes in a row in an odd configuration doesn't necessarily mean there will be people around who enjoy hearing a lot of notes played in a row in an odd configuration. Talent, skill, and technicality are tools to create music, not the music itself. I can't recommend anybody to buy this, because it's simply not entertaining enough to even warrant the cheap price that you could get from Itunes or Rhapsody. I'd just recommend to torrent this for the song Space Foam, and so you could skim the rest of the songs. However, you'd be much better off getting Live From Oz or Moonbabies. Those have something Quantum thoroughly lacks, and that is dynamics, variation, and actual songs, instead of wankfests.
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great song's....
BalasHapus