Magnitude Nine are one of the most underrated progressive metal bands to come out of the late 20th century, they have released three promising albums, Chaos To Control, Reality In Focus and Decoding The Soul. They don’t hold back in their music, they can go from catchy, melodic epic(ish) songs to brutal prog metal numbers capable of tearing your walls a new one! Decoding The Soul was the latest release, which features the soaring vocals of Corey Brown and the shredding guitar of Rob Johnson. If the name Rob Johnson sounds familia, then you might have come across his instructional releases through Chops From Hell, amongst the likes of Rusty Cooley, Francesco Fareri, Shane Gibson and many more. Rob also has a few self-produced solo albums.
The Review
First up is “New Dimension”, a song filled with power and atmosphere coupled with its catchy vocal melodies. Probably the best song on the album, in my opinion. This song will get you hooked within the first minute. Rob’s talents really shine through in this, not just as a player but also as a songwriter, as most of the music is composed by Rob. The next song, “Lies Within The Truth” is similar to “New Dimension”, very catchy, lots of atmosphere, but not quite as heavy. It’s quite long but not too long, rounding up at six minutes as it has you singing along, without being cheesy. “Facing The Unknown” has a more ballad metal feel to it, yet still very powerful, especially the outro, which has a crushing riff with pounding drums, it’s pretty different to the sing-along feel to the rest of the song. The chorus in particular.
“To Find A Reason” starts out alot like “New Dimension”, with atmospheric synths and then goes into a catchy guitar solo before the verse. It has strong vocals with small guitar solos throughout the song, but Rob doesn’t over do it, which makes it even better. It has a very dark breakdown before the solo which shows the versatility of Corey Brown’s voice. “Walk Through The Fire” is another catchy metal tune; it has one of the best guitar riffs on the album, but gets a little repetitive towards the end. The next song blows your head off without warning. “Dead In Their Tracks” starts out with shredding guitar and then starts pumping with a climbing sort of guitar riff. It’s a little bit of a neo-classical metal song with a short guitar and keyboard trade off solo, if this sounds like your kind of stuff then check these guys out!
“Changes” is again a very atmospheric song. It starts with a nice clean intro and the chorus has a cool flowing sensation. It also has an alien sounding guitar solo which shows that Rob Johnson can solo more than once in a song and still not sacrifice good song writing. “Torn” is a pretty mellow song, it show the strong musicianship between each member of the band. Even though it’s a mellow song, it still has a lot of power, just in a different way, if you know what I mean. Then when “Thirty Days Of Night” starts, it’s back to the heavy stuff. It has the best vocals on the album and classic prog verses with tribal(ish) drumming and haunting vocals. But the rest of the song is quite melodic, except for the solo that is more suited to the style of the verse. “Sands Of Time” goes back to the mellower stuff, very gentle vocals, very catchy and almost spoken verses backed up with clean guitars and oceanic sounding synths. You could consider the solo the main climax of the song; it has a big build-up on the rest of the song and makes a perfect ending for this album.
So I think this can give you an idea of what this awesome band is about. They are for fans of Dream Theater, Queensryche, Yngwie Malmsteen, Symphony X, etc. The players display amazing technical ability without sacrificing the actual song itself.
