I think we’re nearing the saturation point of progressive-rock
\nsupergroup collaborations.<\/p>\n
Oh, it was cool when Bozzio Levin Stevens put out their effort
\nlast year (and I do hope rumors of a second collaboration between
\nthem are true). Then there was Rudess Morgenstein Project last
\nyear. Levin’s teaming with Bill Bruford was also a welcome addition
\nto this year’s releases. By the time Liquid Tension Experiment
\n(featuring Mike Portnoy and Jordan Rudess) hit the market, I was
\nstarting to wonder if we were experiencing too much of a good
\nthing.<\/p>\n
Now comes the mother of all supergroups, Explorers Club, How can I say this? Well, frankly, it’s very hard for me to tell Ah, the music. For progressive rock, \nAge Of Impact<\/i> could be considered a concept album, as pieces Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against progressive rock, \nAge Of Impact<\/i> is a solid effort from some of the genre’s
\nfeaturing Bozzio, Billy Sheehan, Dream Theater’s John Petrucci (who
\nalso took part in Liquid Tension Experiment) Derek Sherinian and
\nJames LaBrie, just to name a few. And while musically this is a
\nsolid disc, it does seem to mark for me the fact that the
\nsupergroups are beginning to get a little out of hand. (I could
\nname all the performers, but that would take a lot of space in the
\nreview. For a complete rundown of the players, check out
\nMagna Carta’s web
\nsite<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
\non these five songs who is performing what vocal or solo. Is that
\nkeyboard work being handled by Sherinian, Matt Guillory or Trent
\nGardner (Magellan)? Who did that vocal: Bret Douglas (Cairo), Matt
\nBradley (Dali’s Dilemma), LaBrie, D.C. Cooper (Royal Hunt) or
\nGardner? Some fans of prog-rock will probably declare me ignorant
\nfor this reason; I guess I’d have to agree with them. But while I’d
\nreally like to know if that was Steve Howe handling the guitar work
\n(the acoustic work from Howe and the nylon string guitar work from
\nFrederick Clarke sound quite similar to my ears), in the end, it’s
\nthe music that matters more.<\/p>\n
\nAge Of Impact<\/i> is nowhere near as bombastic as some might
\nhave expected it to be. The overall feel of the music is quite
\ngood, ranging from all-out rock (“Fate Speaks”) to more
\nintrospective works (“Fading Fast”, “No Returning”). Lyrically, I
\nwas not able to follow the preparation of man to step into the new
\nmillenium and the pitfalls that await. (Obviously people are more
\nconcerned about the Y2K computer glitch than I thought.) Pity –
\nthis might have been an interesting concept, had it been a little
\nclearer in the presentation.<\/p>\n
\ntend to blend into each other, and everything comes full circle to
\na point in the album’s closer “Last Call” before it musically
\nbranches out into its own unique voice. And, unlike a lot of
\nprogressive rock albums I’ve listened to, if you’re not paying
\nattention, it will be finished before you’re even aware that 53
\nminutes have passed. In this aspect alone,
\nAge Of Impact<\/i> stands out from some works I’ve listened to
\nover the last decade.<\/p>\n
\nnor am I against the creation of supergroups in the field. However,
\nafter seeing so many of them in the last twelve months, one wonders
\nif Explorers Club should mark a moratorium on such pairings for a
\nwhile, lest the whole concept get real stale real fast.<\/p>\n
\nmost talented musicians, and even though you need a scorecard to
\nfigure out who’s playing which part, it’s still very much worth
\nchecking out for the musical knowledge that emulates throughout the
\ndisc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6690],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39339","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-explorers-club","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39339"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}