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Tracklisting:
1. Suspended Animation Dreams
2. Wolf Among Sheep
3. No Place Like Home
4. Kind of a Blur
5. The Rock N Roll Preacher
6. Six Strings
7. Awake
8. X
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Band Name: Subterranean Masquerade
Album Name: Suspended Animation Dreams
Release Date: 2005-06-21
Label: The End Records
Producer:
Listen: No Place Like Home
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Have you ever wondered what would happen if you locked a group of extremely talented rock musicians in a room? Probably. But what if they came from very different musical backgrounds, with different tastes and influences. And it's not over… they have, at their disposal, practically every instrument you can think of. The result: Subterranean Masquerade's new album, 'Suspended Animation Dreams.'
Subterranean Masquerade is a relatively new band to emerge from the United States. This effort is their first full-length, following up an EP released in 2004. The core of the band consists of guitarists Tomer Pink and Jake Depolitte, and vocalist Paul Kuhr (also of November's Doom). These three utilize a great assortment of session members to round out the album, ranging from mandolins to trumpets. Overall, the record has an almost prog-rock feel to it, with metal influences present but not predominant. In a way if feels more like a piece of art than a CD, which in many ways is a very good thing.
'Suspended Animation Dreams' kicks off with 'SAD', a short intro-like song, which is filled with lots of ambient noises and some beautiful clean vocals from Paul, with flutes carrying out the melody at the end. This flows nicely into 'Wolf Among Sheep,' where the first metal influences are present. Paul does some nice death vocals at times throughout the song, and the riffs are much heavier. Next comes 'No Place Like Home,' where everything really seems to come together. Clean and death vocals are mixed perfectly with lighter and heavier guitar chords. Several additional elements make this song really great, including extensive use of violin, piano, and some interesting chants done by Kobi Farhi of Orphaned Land. 'Kind of a Blur' gives us a nice ending to the first half of the CD, acting almost like a mid-tro. It consists mostly of piano and chants.
With the first half of the album being spectacular, let's take a look at the second half. Luckily this only happens a few times. 'The Rock and Roll Preacher' is more or less average (for them, anyway) instrumentally, but this song's lyrics are really quite striking. They consist of a few excellent metaphors coupled with a handful of interesting allusions, giving the song a truly unique feel. The next song. 'Six Strings to Cover Freedom' is probably the most metallic of them all. Paul does lots of death vocals, which, when combined with some excellent riffing and a screeching violin, make for a solid track. Unfortunately, on 'Awake,' the band's brilliance falters just a little. The song starts out entertaining enough, but ends up falling into a monotonous drone. However, it is pretty tough to pull off a fourteen minute song successfully, so it's not all that bad of a job. This track also features some beautiful female vocals performed by Wendy Jernijan. Finally, to conclude comes 'X,' an appropriately named track with lots of different elements again coming into play. It makes an excellent parallel to the leadoff song, which it most closely resembles.
'Suspended Animation Dreams' is just a few dabs of the paintbrush away from being a masterpiece. The fact that's it's the band's first full-length album says a lot about their talent and creative level. A wide range of bands that extensively utilize progressive elements come to mind, including Opeth, Wolverine, and Dream Theater. But it isn't really fair to say that Subterranean Masquerade resembles any of these bands; rather they have established a class of their own.
Review by: Andrew
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