Review Summary: It's rare that you see music fuelled by pure emotion these days, and Moontower is the perfect embodiment of such a feat.
Emotion – It’s a word that’s tossed around the music industry a lot these days. Bands such as the rubbish endorsed by Kerrang seem to coin this word as a synonym with their music (hence the term ‘emo’) but instead miss the mark, and spiral into mediocrity, whiney vocals and all. Rarely an album is created when the band members, or member –
Dan Swano - in this case, showcase true emotion in which the music reflects their feelings at the time.
What relevance does this have? The background is quite interesting; after releasing Edge of Sanity’s 1997 album,
Infernal, Dan was forced to leave his own band after the other members teamed up with their label, Black Mark, presumably due to musical differences. You can understand how this must have affected him, and sure enough, he fell into anger and depression. From this rut,
Moontower was born.
From the moment
Sun of the Night blasts into your speakers, you can tell why Dan has such a reputation as a producer. Shimmering clean production is showcased perfectly here, with each instrument having its own unique tone. You can easily distinguish between guitar and keyboard lines and the bass is still audible, which is more than can be said for a lot of metal albums.
This leads me onto my next point, the musicianship, all handled by Swano. Those looking for overly technical riffery won’t find as much here as they might want. That being said, the guitar riffs are so well executed that it doesn’t matter; in fact, it shows a large sense of restraint by Mr. Swano. For some riffs, he carefully intertwines guitar and keyboard lines which keep the listener from getting bored. Yes, there are guitar solos on this album, and standout moments include the 7/8 time signature voyage on
Uncreation, filled with memorable melodies, and in the closing moments of the monstrous instrumental that is
Encounterparts. Now, the drums on this album aren’t your typical Death Metal drums. In fact, this whole album doesn’t have any blastbeats, and no super fast tremolo picked riffs over the top – but the Death Metal status of this album is enforced by Dan’s low intense growls. Needless to say, the drums play tasteful grooves and fills that fit in with the medium pace of the album like peas and carrots. The bass, while being essential for this album to sound complete, is nothing particularly special and only really stands out during the cleaner sections of the album, for example the piano prog section of
Sun of the night. As I mentioned earlier, Dan’s growls are top notch with a sound fairly similar to a certain Mr. Akerfeldt. Despite this being the most prominent vocal style, there are moments when Swano unleashes a beautiful clean voice which is similar to his vocal work with
Nightingale, most notably during the outro to
Add Reality and the middle section of
The Big Sleep.
There are so many features that
Moontower showcases that it is hard to pick up everything that is going on but I’ll give it a try. If you’re a fan of prog, there is plenty to be found here: Odd time signatures that are never awkward (tracks 3 (middle) and 7), Acoustic/Clean interludes galore, and my favourite of them all, dreamy passages that are propelled by catchy keyboard lines and have the power to soothe even when your mood is far from calm. If you’re a fan of Metal in general, theres the growls, the groove, and the straight up metal riffage – all of which are executed brilliantly in
Creating Illusions.
As this is Progressive Death Metal rather than Death Metal alone, the lyrical themes are all different to standard ‘gorefest’ lyrics.
Add Reality is a song about love and its good and bad times, while
The Big Sleep handles the concept of death in a more contemplative manner than typical Death Metal:
The big sleep is the only thing that is for sure and we're all gonna face it
It’s something we have to endure
Standout tracks:
These are a couple of songs that stand slightly above the rest, but only by a little.
Sun of the Night
This bursts in with a single guitar chord with a catchy keyboard melody that will have you wishing that you wrote it yourself. The song is a great example of the album’s general sound, and sets it off to a great start. The eerie keyboard lines switch from a 4/4 time signature to a slightly odd 6/8 to 3/4 switch, with more of his high class growls. The song breaks into small ‘breather’ sections of almost lunar acoustic guitars until the song slips into one of my favourite moments in music: a piano driven soundscape with a distant high guitar playing a memorable melody (also reminding me of lunar atmospheres). Finally, the song hits the solo section, then revisits a previous idea before the final roar of ‘Oh how I long to be one with the sun of mine’ ends it.
Encounterparts
As
Moontower’s only instrumental, this song has a lot to live up to, especially after 6 full tracks of awe-inspiring Prog Metal. And boy does it deliver. An odd time signature riff reminiscent of Dream Theater intertwines with slow, spacey clean guitar sections with that trademark soothing keyboard layer over the top. Complex but slow distorted guitar lines add to the clean sections, and the song speeds up slightly, before falling once again into another trippy section. It then builds up using a simple but effective chord progression to frantically strummed acoustic that is both happy and epic. A victorious keyboard lead is added, before the song get heavier and reaches its climax at the re-emergence of the jagged opening riff. A solo section breaks this up to end the song, but what an end. One of the best instrumentals in Metal, even to this day.
In terms of the most interesting metal,
Dan Swano is miles ahead, and each song here has its own theme which flows like a babbling brook. A one off gem, this album is unique and bursting with life – a refreshing listen that will inspire you. It's rare that you see music fuelled by pure emotion these days, and
Moontower is the perfect embodiment of such a feat.
5/5
This Message Edited On 01.07.09
