Strange Land - Strange Land
Music is certainly a curious thing. At least in orthodox Occidental
tradition, there is nothing available other than twelve notes that are repeated
in lower or higher registers to create a song, but the rich quantity of timbres,
sounds, regulators, and rhythms at the musician's disposition is so vast that
the end result is, without any further insight, anything but predictable. And
yet, with such a range of possibilities, there are unique combinations of
instruments, keys, and rhythmic patterns that produce music that can often be
categorized into general dispositions that piece together the strewn pieces of
the musical spectrum into more comprehensible units. During more than thirty
years, one of these units has stood bravely in the face of its detractors both
in the public eye and in the underground: heavy metal.
Even when metal is the result of a certain amount of musical
factors, however, the genre has proved through the years that the combinations
resulting from these factors offer new, even if minimal, changes ad infinitum,
and thus heavy metal is unlikely to ever stagnate in its entirety. Thus one can
have a band that features a host of traits well known to the metal audience and
still adds its own share of spice to the mix in order to be considered as
unique. Strange Land is such a band. With its self-titled debut, this American
unit is firmly rooted in much of the habits of eighties progressive metal, a
hint of more modern touches, and a collection of sounds that demonstrate
influences from bands such as Fates Warning, Savatage, and Rush, but still
garners enough originality and style to stand out on its own. Voila, now we're
getting somewhere.
The
approach of Strange Land is that of a trio in which the bass is slightly more
than just a backing instrument and keyboards surface every once in a while into
a dominant role after being absent for a while, but in which the guitar rules
supreme and unchallenged, spewing one metallic riff after another and yet
keeping things from getting really heavy. Then and again the black sheep of the
family rears its ugly head and confronts the norm though, such as in the
absorbing and somber piano-led simplicity of "Scorpio," or in the curiously good
humored pace of "Flight," but overall the approach is one that is hardly going
to give anyone a heart attack with unexpected shocks of surprise.
Of
special importance to anyone interested in the work of this band, however, is
the fact that the album's production leaves much to be desired. Not only the
overall weakness of sonic impact is to be faulted though, as there is something
that doesn't quite work with the combination of the band members' respective
instruments, partly due to orchestration that requires some fixing; partly due
to the record's mix. Then Sean Gill's guitar solos hit the sour note a couple of
times throughout the course of the album, and Chad Novell's voice sounds somehow
out of place at times, all due to faulty production and all detracting from the
impact of this trio.
This album thus situated me in the same position that I found myself
in roughly a month ago with Kurgan's Bane's The Future Lies Broken;
that of weighing the advantages of the album against its more obvious
disadvantages when choosing an appropriate grade, and of giving me a headache in
the complicated decision process. Strange Land's fiery sense of conviction
finally managed to barely land this album on the better side, but sadly could
not erase the fact that the sound on its debut leaves much to be desired and
bettered in order for it to attain a decent level of professionalism. It's not
that there is nothing to dig into here…it's just that everything's still too
rough around the edges and could certainly use some polishing
up.
-by Marcelo Silveyra