Terraform

I really want to love Jupiter Society, but keyboardist and "chairman" Carl Westholm makes it so difficult. His sci-fi metal pet project often hints at greatness, but never seems to deliver. The first album hooked me for two songs before Westholm suddenly forgot how to structure one, and I've been waiting for some sort of payoff ever since. Just one year passed before this followup, "Terraform," was released. Did it fix the meandering songs, the monotonous vocal lines, the momentum-killing transitions? To go with the theme of the album, Jupiter Society at this point is like a halfway-terraformed planet; there's technically a breathable atmosphere now, but it's still kind of a shitty place to live.

The basic formula hasn't changed from before. The songs are all slow to midtempo, dominated by layers upon layers of proggy space synths, orchestral elements and vocoders. The sound design on the keyboards is top notch, so whether they're providing dark ambience, shimmering sequencer lines or solos, they always have a nice high-budget sheen that I just find primally satisfying for some reason. The arrangements are high quality, and the more epic parts would be right at home in a Hollywood movie trailer. There are metal guitars, but they usually don't do a whole lot, just providing rhythm and some superficial heaviness. One new element on "Terraform" is the inclusion of extended guitar solos, which are expertly played, but just provide more fluff that doesn't solve my fundamental problems with the album. A handful of solid riffs would have done much more to round things out. Vocals are in the tenor power metal style, well-performed, with big multitracked choruses. The vocal melodies - though an improvement - are still stiff sometimes, leaving it up to the singers to try to add a human touch to parts that aren't expressive.

My biggest gripe before was the song construction, and in that area, this rock is still desolate. If anything, it's more annoying than before, because the high points of the songs have gotten even higher, while the lows have remained roughly as low. Most songs effectively end up being a couple of amazing highlights surrounded by minutes of ambient noodling. Listen to the main keyboard riff in "Terraforming," the outro of "Beyond These Walls..." or that chorus in "New Universe" - it's just mind-bogglingly huge, grandiose music. The other parts are alright too, really, but they just make no sense from a writing stance. The songs suddenly explode into awesomeness and then drop everything to drone for awhile instead of building off of it. It's very frustrating. However, you might end up with the impression of a good album if you're using it as background music, since you'll forget everything but the good parts afterwards. Maybe Carl Westholm would thrive if he just dropped the obligatory "metal song" parts and did something more freeform.