A Secret to Hide

Germany’s Poverty’s No Crime crosses my ears for the first time and I approve. Turns out this band has been around since ‘91 and have quite a consistent back catalogue of releases. “A Secret To Hide” is the band’s 8th studio release, a collection of 8 prog rock/metal lengthy pieces running along the lines of classic prog. This is a prog band that writes music for fans of music, rather than for fans of audio math. An accurate FFO might include the likes of Dream Theater, Evergrey and Fates Warning, as the band writes with focus on melody, harmony and emotion, stepping down from technicality.

I’m generally a fan of the techy stuff that the prog world seems to thrive on today, but the occasional return to roots of classic elegant prog music is nothing to disparage, and a good change of pace for me. This is probably one of the easiest albums to listen to that I’ve heard this year. It’s got no shock, no extremity, no bombardment of pretentiousness, instead luring you in with sweet melodies and feeling, however still keeping just enough intricacy to raise an eyebrow every now and then. We get mid tempo laid back songs with gradual evolutions, themes and earworms as well as tiny bits of spotlighted rhythmic chops and virtuous solo work. While there’s an underlying feel of progressive tension in many of the riffs and ideas, it only rarely takes the attention away from the emotion.

This quintet builds their music almost like a movie soundtrack which can work in the background of a narrative. I actually have no idea if this is a concept album, but it very well might. The keyboards build a lot of the atmosphere with all sorts of sounds, from synths and piano to hammond and even a little bit of fuzz when things tend to get riffy. Guitars have a few of this riffy sections but otherwise focus on strong harmony and recurring lead themes within the songs as well as taking the spotlight with strong expressive solos. Consistent tasteful use of vibrato and string bending far outweighs any use of technicality as we only see few fast passages. The bass sits comfortably in the background, peering forward a little bit on the more silent sections, and the drums maintain a mainly functional role. Thus we get to the vocals, which sound kind of like a lower pitched James LaBrie. We have clean, emotional, maybe even a little melancholic vocals, with no grit whatsoever, keeping things nice and neat. A little bit of layering here and there and some slips into falsetto wrap up the package.

It’s easy to get lost in this album and drift away seeing things that you didn’t know you could see. Therein lies its strongest asset, and “Poverty’s No Crime” seem to know how to stick to their strengths and work for the betterment of the songs. If I’m being honest I’d prefer more dynamics and intricacy, but there’s no denying that the album works for what it is just fine. However, despite the easy listening nature, a closer look seems to show a gradual evolution in the album’s tone, which may or may not be reflecting a concept. The songs tend to get darker towards the end of the album (we even get a vocal free song with what sounds like war themed narration / dialogue in “The Great Escape”) as the melodies feel a bit more tense and increasing on the melancholy. Then, a 10+ minute piece conveniently titled “In The Shade” closes the record, oddly giving a sense of freedom at the end.

"A Secret To Hide" has seen the light of day on April 30th through Metalville.

Enjoy!

Originally Written for : The Metal Observer