Unexpect - Fables Of the Sleepless Empire

This album screams cheese. If you enjoy this stuff then I don't know whether to be sorry for trashing it or sorry for you,

I've outgrown this stuff. I might've enjoyed this years ago, but Unexpect's Fables Of The Sleepless Empire is everything I absolutely hate about flamboyant, noodling "progressive" metal. The band's juvenile attempts at being "avant-garde" come off as half-baked and cheesy. Symphonic elements - violins, operatic female vocals, neo-classical guitars, and some of the most fruity keyboards this side of Cradle Of Filth - rule Fables Of The Sleepless Empire from beginning to end. There was a time where I thought Kalisia was tolerable, and Persefone was pretty badass, but now is not that time.

As long as you understand that, you can go ahead and dismiss (or applaud) the rest of this review.

Structurally speaking, most of these songs are actually fairly predictable in that they have different movements that build to a particular climax. That's about all they have going for themselves though. Otherwise you're subject to a forgettable and disorganized blur of arpeggiations emanating from both guitar and keyboard. Talented but trite female vocals really dampen the excitement offered by the flurry of instruments. Add some forced, high-pitched harsh vocals underneath the female lead and you have a recipe for me getting a headache. This headache peaked during the first half of noodle-synthfest "Mechanical Phoenix" and didn't go away until I walked away from my damn speakers.

Now that I think about it, my hatred for this album - piss poor songwriting aside - might be due to it not being "heavy." I've heard acoustic folk albums heavier than this. Atmospherically speaking Fables Of The Sleepless Empire falls flat on its face. Why? Because there isn't any atmosphere. Unexpect even manages to botch the atmosphere in longer tracks where they have time to build like "Unfed Pendulum," and did I just hear fucking palm-muting? Seriously that was some of the weakest palm-muting I've ever heard this side of newer Whitechapel. This is largely because of the no bass, ultra compressed production values present throughout the album. The snare sounds flat and the pillow bass drum is insanely aggravating. There's no escaping them either, except for when this shit stops spinning.

At least the musicians have a degree of talent. It's just a shame they decided to waste it on this pretentious, musically inept album.

3.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	Unsolved Ideas of a Distorted Guest
2.	Words
3.	Orange Vigilantes
4.	Mechanical Phoenix
5.	The Quantum Symphony
6.	Unfed Pendulum
7.	In the Mind of the Last Whale
8.	Silence this Parasite
9.	A Fading Stance
10.	When the Joyful Dead Are Dancing
11.	Until Yet a Few More Deaths Do Us Part

Virus - The Agent That Shapes The Desert

For the last thirty-one days of the year I'm planning to do a review on a 2011 album every day. It'll get me in the writing mood and serve as a break from studying for finals.

 

Tritones out the ass. That's what Norway's Virus' The Agent That Shapes The Desert sounds like. This agent is rhythmically jazzy and dissonant, with a pinch of metal. Although pretty much avant-garde rock, Virus has made quite the name for themselves in the metal scene as well. In this way they're kind of like Porcupine Tree after they assimilated a bunch of pretentious metalheads into their fanbase.

Except Virus is significantly better than slightly above-average progressive rock.

The Agent That Shapes The Desert is a very cohesive album. The instruments are all extremely bright, noticeable, and really pull you in. There's a degree of production here that's unprecedented in this kind of music, and it captures the atmosphere that the music is trying to convey perfectly, making it extremely memorable. Songs like "Chromium Sun" open with a galloping (no not triplets) bassline and keep the tritones and major-sevenths flowing. Others like "Continental Drift" manage this speed over slower chord progressions, creating a slow-moving, geologic feel to the music. The deep bassy distortion at the beginning of the latent track "Dead Cities Of Syria" is addicting and droning, and the song builds nicely on that strong foundation. All the songs are very well-crafted, and it really conveys the precambrian-mesopotamian theme of the album well.

Much to my dismay they had to ruin the fun and add in some of the more boring vocals I've heard this year to each and every track. They almost have an operatic-symphonic quality to them similar to other progressive rock or metal bands, and I always tend to find this style hit or miss. Sure sometimes it's fitting and you can hear the lyrics clearly, but the sheer enunciation of the vocals really kills the atmosphere. Had this been an instrumental avant-garde or even math rock album it probably would've been a bit more tolerable. There are some instances where I feel they work really well though - "Parched Rapids" comes to mind first. The song's innate dissonance and the good use of rests resonates with Czarl's off-kelter vocal approach.

If you're looking for well-written avant-garde rock with several degrees of jazz, metal, and progressive music in its sound, I wouldn't put it past The Agent That Shapes The Desert for it to be exactly what you're looking for.

7.5 out of 10

Tracklisting:

1.	The Agent That Shapes The Desert
2.	Continental Drift
3.	Chromium Sun
4.	Red Desert Sand
5.	Intermission: Furnace Creek
6.	Dead Cities Of Syria
7.	Where The Flame Resides
8.	Parched Rapids
9.	Call Of The Tuskers