Review Summary: Just Micic doing Micic things.
Chances are that if you’re reading this review then you’re already familiar with the work of David Maxim Micic, and if you’re familiar with his prior solo work then you know what you’re getting with this EP. Therefore, due to constraints of form, this review will be written as though you are not already a fan and try to convince you to listen to this album.
Micic is a 25-year old Serbian guitarist and composer who plays in the band Destiny Potato, but has gained more fame among progressive-metal aficionados for his solo work on three
Bilo albums, the last of which was released in 2013 and construes possibly the high point of his creative output (thus far). However, while it would be fair to assume that, as the solo project of a progressive metal guitarist, Micic’s solo work is made up of a bunch of instrumental wank, this proves to be unequivocally untrue. Micic has, in his solo work as well as in Destiny Potato, seemed far more enamoured of the compositional aspect of music-making than in its actual playing. This isn’t to say that his albums don’t contain their fair share of flashy guitar playing. They do, but Micic wants to tell stories through his music, and not just play some really fast licks and finger-cramping oddball riffs.
Ostensibly there is a story to be told in
EGO which constitutes a conceptual piece that will be continued in its companion,
ECO which is slated for release in August 2015. In fact, the strains of the piano melody that open the album and lead into the proper album opener “Define” are themselves a reprise of a melody heard at various points on
Bilo 3.0 and connects this album to Micic’s previous releases. The actual contents of the story told on
EGO are anyone’s guess however, as this is Micic’s most vocals-free release till date, and contains no lyrics. The only vocal turn on here is performed by frequent Micic collaborator Vladimir Lalic who performs a (now-typical) weird scat-like vocal solo in an operatic fashion on “Disorder”.
The lack of instrumental wank is more apparent on
EGO than it is on any of his previous releases. In fact, this is Micic’s most sparse, for lack of a better word, album. It’s no secret that Micic’s main influence as a musician is Devin Townsend and, as a Townsend disciple, Micic loves putting layers upon layers of detail into his music. This is curiously missing on
EGO particularly in “Develop”, which is basically Micic playing a 2-note djent riff that forms a percussive outline to the song that is fleshed out by the violin parts and keyboard melodies contained within. However, this is the least interesting song on
EGO and at 6 minutes long drags on too long by at least a minute and a half.
Where Micic really shines is when he lets his freak-flag fly, which finds him mining the Townsend-ian middle ground between pop-conscious carnival metal weirdness and epic Wagnerian operatic ostentation. The results, seen on “Disorder” and “Devise” are a thrilling listening experience, on par with anything else Micic has done thus far in his career. “Disorder” in addition to Lalic’s vocal weird-isms also contains some tuba and accordion riffing that mimics the guitars and will make you smile while you headbang. The swelling dynamics and urgency of “Devise”, which picks up and builds around a motif established in “Define”, make it seem like a perfect album closer, until it twists itself around over its second half, leaving it open-ended and creating the opening in its story for
ECO to fit in.
EGO clocks in at a mere 23 minutes and this, coupled with the fact that it is tied to the unreleased
ECO makes it somewhat tricky to evaluate. The presence of “Disorder” and “Devise” make
EGO a worthwhile release in and of itself and it will be interesting to see where Micic takes the story he has constructed over the course of
ECO. However, if you can be sure of one thing, it will no doubt be more of the same; the "same" being highly entertaining heavy metal which is, in every sense of the word, progressive.
