Hard 20 |
James La Brie"Elements Of Persuasion" Dream Theater vocalist James La Brie has produced another solo opus of progressive metal. While keeping his roots planted in the prog metal sound of Dream Theater, he does venture into other musical waters on this album, expanding on the style he is known for. Being that James is known for being one of the masters of this genre, it goes without saying that everything on this album-the singing, playing, songwriting, and production-are all top notch. The music, for the most part, is heavy progressive metal, a little heavier than one might expect in fact. The guitars are all very up front and well pronounced, with not as many keyboards used as usual, and there is a dark, "rainy day" aura to it, lyrically covering some disturbing topics. There are some straight up metal songs, like the opener, "Crucify" (the album's fastest song, verging on being speed metal), "Freak", "Invisible", "Undecided", and "Pretender". There are also three ballads, "Lost", "Smashed", and "Slightly Out Of Reach", all of which have classical, jazz, and new age influences. "Alone", meanwhile, has some industrial elements, while "Oblivious" and "In Too Deep" go in a more Alice In Chains kind of direction, the latter ending with some classical style piano. The album's closer, "Drained", is a bit of a pouporri of styles, mixing heavy guitars with classical elements, as well as many other things "prog". James has turned out a very good album here, which of course is to be expected. While he turns all the tricks he is known for on this album, he also goes in a heavier direction than usual, so "Elements..." may help him expand his audience a bit. |