With "The alien inside"
Empty Tremor are back with their third album. Since their last one, "Eros and Thanatos" the Italian band lost their singer but gained a stronger new one when Oliver Hartman decided to take the lead. According to the band's
website he is not a full member yet though.
Empty Tremor play progressive metal and has often been described as being heavily influenced by
Dream Theater, especially on their first album Apocolokyntosys. With The alien inside
Empty Tremor are moving towards developing their own sound and compared to their debut this one is more focused and the songwriting has improved a lot. Oliver Hartman is a fantastic addition to the band, maybe just what they needed to take the next step. His voice has both power, melody and aggression.
When you make a progressive metal album with a theme similar to
Dream Theater's title track of Six degrees of inner turbulence (dealing with mental illness) then it is obvious to draw parallels (Classic album by
Fates Warning by the way). The first one came 32 seconds into the opener,
The Alien inside with a small keyboard passage that at once made me think of DT. Possibly a little homage, but a very cool one and it underlines the melody of the song. I love how this songs starts without any kind of intro. It just jumps straight into a galloping instrumental attack. Very well played bass lines in this song, in fact that goes for the whole album.
Another thing that caught my attention at once was the detailed drum work, which I found extremely captivating. Stefano Ruzzi has a cool rythm and made me think if he had taken lessons from Mike Portnoy. Yes, that is one major compliment...
I always complain that these promos almost never come with lyrics and The alien inside is no exception. Being a concept album, this is one of those times when the lyrics probably would have given the story more sense to me as I found it somewhat confusing. Anyway, the most important thing is the music and there is no doubt these guys are very talented. The music is very technical and opens up slowly with many many details that start showing themselves after repeated listens.
The absolute highlight of the album for me comes with the second and very melodic song
I found you. Starting out as a soothing ballad it slowly builds up intensity and picks up speed with Oliver Hartman showing his strength as he sings some wonderful vocal melodies, while the underlying guitar riff and drums give this part of the song a fantastic rythm. A very fitting guitar solo also helps making this a very captivating and emotionfilled song.
With 60 minutes of music and only eight songs we are dealing with some pretty long songs. That is also one of my main problems with the album. Sometimes a long technical instrumental passages takes over and I would have loved for these to have some more memorable melodies to keep my attention. A few examples are the ending to
A new world that goes on for a bit too long and the middle section of the otherwise excellent
The love I've never had, which really misses the chance to build up tension.
Now that I am going on about the down points of the album I have to mention
Who you really are which
does have some great passages but overall feels stretched out and would have been even better, had it been a little more compact.
Well, back to the good stuff.
Don't stop me is more consistent and has some very interesting parts, while
Stay is a beautiful song and as in
I found you Oliver does some great harmonising here.
The alien outside has a dark atmosphere running through it and closes the album on a sinister note.
I would describe
Empty Tremor to the casual observer as a sweet mix between
Dream Theater and light-Evergrey, but still a few steps down the ladder from these masters. To really win me over I would like a little more variation and some better melodies but all in all this is a great album and recommended to anyone who wants to try some Prog Metal.
Written by
Steen Tuesday, March 23, 2004
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