This Mortal Coil

I actually purchased a copy of this album and listened to it concurrently with Satan's Host's "By The Hands Of The Devil". After greatly appreciating the almighty darkness laid down by Conklin and evil friends I thought it might be a long while till I'd be pounded that hard. I slipped in Redemption's "This Mortal Coil" expecting more of the same treatments we'd received in "Snowfall On Judgment Day" but when I heard the opening of "Path Of The Whirlwind" I licked my lips, closed my eyes and delved right in.

First Impressions: It is without a doubt their heaviest album, the playing is insane and technical in a "Rust In Peace" kinda way, Ray Alder sounds more urgent but still warm and welcoming and if this isn't Nick Van Dyk at his most creative peak, then I don't know what it is! 2011 has been such a glorious year for Progressive metal;
Symphony X's "Iconoclast" landed on to the shores in such furious fashion that the intensity rivaled much blacker releases. John Arch and Jim Mattheos hooked up again and amazingly seemed to pick up where they left off with a collection of songs bridging the gap between Arch-era Fates and the style Jim later envisioned for the band. Dream Theater re-invented their sound and recalled tender days gone with a more expansive and traditionally Prog-rock record. Cynthesis delivered a most intelligent and exhaustive album proving that high thought and high art can still be married. Myrath from Tunisia finally got their due via "Tales Of The Sands" an excellent Prog masterpiece laced with Oriental flavors....whew! It seemed nothing more exciting could be conceived. And then came Redemption's "This Mortal Coil"!

I remember reading a review saying this was Redemption's version of "Iconoclast" but don't let that deceive you. Where symphony X rode on nothing but the strength of the rough metal aesthetic to best serve their machine-fuelled concept at the expense of their Prog roots, Redemption puts on a more intricate face. They play fast and furious riffs throughout but complement them wonderfully with Van Dyk and Greg Hosharian's keyboards and atmospherics. The song "Noonday Devil" however would easily have made the "Iconoclast" track list and not an eyebrow would be raised. Ray Alder is energetic on this one with a rough edge to his voice not unlike Russell Allen's and the song is taut and thick with a Nevermore-like impenetrable wall of sound.

As always with Redemption, emotion plays a quick and immediate role. You feel that the band spent enough time with the songs and strove to give each one singular traits. The well calculated and well delivered emotion makes them lasting and pleasurable to unravel. "Let It Rain" for instance makes the utmost use of Ray Alder's softer side as he sings of past tragedy not in bitterness but in resigned acceptance of "eventual renewal". The rest of the band behind him are not as soft or optimistic. They chug and throw down heaviness that is later dimmed by the severe orchestrations of keys and melodic guitar, giving life to the illusion of rain - and by the song's close its seems optimism has seeped into the pore of every player as the orchestrations become more uplifting and calming.

The rhythm section is the tightest it has ever been, the only disappointing thing being there are a few rough edges.
The lyrics are the best they've ever been given that Redemption usually lets down in that department. The song "Begin Again" for instance charms with lines such as;
"This manufactured world of pain brings shock to the system that rearranges DNA into a code of death" which see the band as lamenting cynics and "Trying to conform to what might seem the norm has brought me here where I might die" that sees them take on such a bitter tone usually unlike them but welcome nonetheless for its multiple dimensions in meaning. The rather grim "Dreams From The Pit" about which Ray sings of being judged and found wanting by the jury of one's dreams tries its hand at a more morose Redemption and works surprisingly well.

A second disc came with my purchase and was made entirely of covers. They are all well executed as Redemption makes the songs truly their own. I love the guys but I never deluded myself into crediting them with a signature sound. After listening to them interpret Elton John, Tori Amos, Journey and UFO among others though, I have to finally take pleasure in the fact that they have developed a signature after all.
Dream Theater also covered "Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding" in days of yore so just listen to both renditions to realize for yourself that interpretation need not be derivative.

But going back to the main album, the closing song "Departure of the Pale Horse" will go down as one of Redemption's finer moments. This glorious epic ranks alongside Prog metal classics such as Dream Theater's "New Millennium", Symphony X's "Through the Looking Glass" , Fates Warning's "The Eleventh Hour" and Crimson Glory's "Burning Bridges". Like all those songs it takes its time to grow and is contrastingly gentle and furious, weaving a selection of emotions throughout its structure. The instrumentation is without fault and simply stunning. Sean Andrews on bass lays down a thunderous groove but substitutes it down the line with harrowing emotional lines that Van Dyk places melodic guitar and effects over. The lyrics run a thread through the rest of the songs on the album and put everything into focus - thus a story actually emerges that makes good sense and the progression is then clearly felt. On "Path Of The Whirlwind" through "Dreams From The Pit" hopelessness runs rank and clear and our protagonist is clearly in distress. "Noonday Devil" sees a change in mood, he is now defiant and growing resistant towards whatever distant undefined force tries to eradicate him. A lot of reflection and reassessment follows from there that by the time "Departure Of The Pale Horse" rolls around, his exhaustion is clear and understandable - and Redemption capture this perfectly in the music. It is a fitting and satisfying climax to a truly great album to say the least.

Being formed by members of Symphony X and Fate's Warning, it does not come as much of a surprise that Redemption are one of the most talked about progressive metal bands these days. Now close to a decade old, this supergroup has now put out five albums, all falling within a fairly close style to its parent acts. 'This Mortal Coil' is the most recent album from these titans, and anyone who has heard what Redemption is all about before should have a good idea of what to expect here. Redemption's latest falls into an ever-growing category of albums that while incredibly impressive from a production and performance standpoint, ultimately fails to move me in any way. For all of the talent exerted here, it is all the more disappointing that the end result is little more than a run-of-the-mill melodic power metal record.

Glorious things have been done in the past by both Fate's Warning and Symphony X, and I would even have some great things to say about some of the music that Redemption has released in the past. However, I get the feeling that the label of prog metal is being watered down now to the point where it is perhaps unintentionally crossing over into power metal and even melodic rock much more than it did when the fusion of prog and heavy metal was still young. If there is one thing that progressive metallers and Redemption in particular have however, it is musical skill. This is a well-produced album with strong performance and even a handful of jaw-dropping instrumental sections. The times where the band breaks into technical segments or solos is where Redemption really shines, sounding a great deal like the bombastic instrumentals of Symphony X. Sadly, the proggy moments have been toned down on 'This Mortal Coil' in favour of more melodies.

All in all, the melodies and songwriting here are both fairly good, although it is most often predictable. One thing that surprised me here was the voice of Ray Alder, for the fact that his delivery here is so much different than his work with Fate's Warning that I have heard; he aims towards a soothing melodic delivery that nails pitch perfectly, yet I can't say that I prefer this dimension of Alder. I would never deny that Redemption have talent- they are in fact a collaboration of some of the most gifted and enduring musicians in progressive metal. All the same, their work on 'This Mortal Coil' feels tame and predictable. This streamlined effort is reminiscent of the disappointment I felt with Symphony X's latest release. Where I'm left wanting a roller coaster, I'm stuck riding a tilt-a-whirl, albeit a very well-oiled one.

When it comes to the whole progressive metal genre, I'd like to think I'm pretty picky. Redemption is one of those bands that, while I think what they're doing is good, it was vocalist Ray Alder that kept me with them. As a fan of Fates Warning, finding him in this band, several years ago mind you, made me a fan.

The opening to this album really threw me for a loop, Path of The Whirlwind starts off sounding like something you might hear from a modern tech-death band, with crazy bass and guitar harmonies. After hearing that, the rest of the album is noticeably darker and more complex than any of their previous four full-lengths. The sound is a lot denser and solid sounding with a lot less room in the mix for atmosphere and soaring vocal lines. In the end, I don't think that this lives up to how much I enjoyed their 2009 album, Snowfall On Judgment Day, which was much more melodic and had a lot more atmosphere on it. This thing, at some points, feels very crammed and doesn't feel all that appropriate for Alder's vocals. A lot of these songs feel like his vocals were added on at the very last moment, like every song was pretty much written instrumentally and then they remembered that they actually had a vocalist. A lot of these songs, to me, feel like they probably would have been just as effective as instrumentals as they are with Alder singing on them. That's not something I take pleasure in saying, because like I said above, I'm a fan of his voice, but I feel like a lot of these tracks just didn't need him.

I do feel like this is the band's most accomplished and aggressive record yet, but I also feel that this album is also one of their weakest. A lot of these songs didn't have those moments that made me want to return to the album over and over, like the last one or The Fullness of Time did for me. These guys obviously worked hard, and it sounds a lot more complex and in-your-face than any of their other albums, but the mix leaves a lot to be desired and ends up hurting the record a lot. This album will obviously turn a lot of more modern tech-metal/math metal kids onto these guys, if that's any indication of where this album's technicality lies. When the band actually try and do a song more in the vein of the previous material, or more traditional prog-metal, the likes of Let It Rain or Focus, it just winds up feeling so forced and unnatural. Tracks like Departure of The Pale Horse on the other hand sound very close to what the band has done before, a bit more technical maybe, but actually pulls it off with gusto.

By the end of it, I was pretty split down the middle for this. Some songs were pretty good while others were just painfully average and did nothing for me. Check it out if you already like the band, but I highly recommend you looking into this album if you like more of the math/tech metal stuff, because that's kind of where this album is closer to.

Originally written for http://dontcountonitreviews.blogspot.com/