Artist: Hourglass Album: Oblivious To The Obvious Year of Release: 2009 Genre: Progressive Metal It's not often I come across a release as flawed as this one and still feel confident enough to call it a gem. What we have here is one of the meatier releases for this year. Clocking in at 140 minutes with most songs not dropping below 7 minutes, there's a lot to digest, so be prepared for a time commitment if you plan on giving this album your undivided attention. What you get in return however, is a smorgasbord any lover of modern progressive can enjoy. With such an enormous amount of material on display, getting lost in a sea of music is all too easy. Opener “On The Brink†combats this by having a segmental build-up, easing the listener into the album. The overall musicianship is high, with an emphasis on cohesion of all the instruments, rather than a certain focal point. Production is somewhat lacking, as is the case with their entire catalog. John Dunston's drums sound distant, volume swells sound cheap and Brick Williams' guitar often fails to push through when there's need for some extra crunch. Conversely the keyboard and piano sound very clear and Eric Blood's bass has enough punch to cover for the guitar. Second song “Homeward Bound†is more song-oriented featuring a bass-solo serving the song a great deal and propelling it past guitar and – keyboard solos and a memorable chorus. “Pawn 2†covers your oriental needs, but not without its fair share of prog-cheese, mainly attributed to the lyrics by new singer Michael Turner. It's the subsequent ballad “Faces†that makes clear the singer has a distinct comfort zone, when leaving it his voice makes a hard right at the corner of LaBrie & Mustaine, giving his high note an unintentional snarl. Nonetheless his voice is adequate when not stressed and is miles above the atrocious background choirs, which sound more like a convention of eunuch laryngitis patients, all simultaneously responding to the doctor's request of opening wide and saying “Aaaaaahhhâ€. Centerpiece of the album “38th Floor†goes beyond the 20-minute mark with interesting passages and ideas abound, but not enough to qualify for its enormous length and lacking in memorability; at which point the sheer bulk of 140 minutes of music starts to take its toll. “Skeletons†hardly alleviates the overwhelming sense of disorientation. “Estranged†is more focused on melody but – like “Pawn 2†- somewhat cheap. Ending the cycle is “Deliriumâ€, which is most reminiscent of Fates Warning and is probably the most progressive song on the album, making it a worthy closure. Unfortunately not all is well in Happy-Go-Proggy-Ville, the self-titled final suite that is tasked to send off this album - which I have dubbed “The Cancer Epic†- makes this embarrassingly apparent. I'm not speaking in hyperbole when I say that the closing five-way is the biggest disappointment I have come across in context of an album's overall quality. Musically speaking, there are about 4-5 minutes of interesting ideas to be found in the 30 minute finale, most of which is located in the tail-end instrumental. The absolute nadir however are the lyrics, which have been a consistent weakness over the entire span of the album. I'm hard-pressed to find words to describe how awful, blatant, in-your-face and poorly chosen the words in relation to the subject matter are; so instead I'll just share the horror: http://www.hourglassband.com/lyrics/oblivious_to_the_obvious.html Painful indeed and it would've been better if it was left off the album. The dilemma this LP eventually poses is whether or not you can deduct points from an album that has more than enough outstanding material to fit on a “standard-length†prog record, because of a surplus of bad/redundant material. After listening to this album on a regular basis for 7 months, I still don't have a satisfactory answer. What I do know is that I've thoroughly enjoyed myself and am still discovering new things every time I spin this record. As far as a rating is concerned, you can go about this album two ways depending on your personal approach to music: - If you're the realist who rates an album as a whole, weighing the pros and cons, the weak and the good moments equally; then your score will probably end up between 6-8 out of 10 - If you're the idealist who judges an album by its merits and can overlook the isolated flaws, your rating will probably end up between the 7-9 out of 10. A great record, but not without severe qualifications.
I found it quite a chore to get through. The only album that can hold my attention for >2 hours is MCatIS.
It took me a few minutes to figure out what album you were referring to. Also, any opinions on it other than lengthy? - Feel free to ridicule my thick accent and shitty writing-style btw -
I actually enjoyed it for the first half hour or so, but then it became rather bland and I just wanted it to be over. But I'm not that big of a pure prog fan.
