This being the third brainchild project of Ian Parry, aligning itself with many other symphonic concept projects such as Ayreon, Phenomena, Star One, Nikolo Kotev's Nostradamas and Avantasia, Parry has again shown himself noteworthy of the symphonic/conceptual crown.
Filled with an all-star cast of musicians, featuring guitarist Stephen Lill (Vanden Plas), keyboardist Joshua Dutrieux (Elegy), and drummer Casey Grillo (Kamelot), among others, the third installment to Parry's conceptual mindset proves no weaker than it's predecessors.
Filled with an overall balance of Progressive Metal, Symphonic Metal, and of course Power Metal, "Terra Incognita" is filled with keyboard orchestration, pulsating double bass, thick guitars, classical piano work, operatic harmonies, and discreet production, "Terra Incognita" just might be the concept record of the year.
The songs flow easily from one another, creating the whole progressive structure verses simple songwriting structure, basically placing a series of songs in one opus to offer more technical and complicated musical endeavor. Opening up with the baroque orchestration that leads into the Rhapsody-esque cut
"The Council of Elders," actually sounding as if were a more symphonic version of one of Dream Theater's "Images and Words-era" cuts. Following up with
"Spirit of Kindness," which has it's tame moments moving from a full blown symphonic cut to more or less a stripped down rock solid metal opus, then returning to the basic symphonic structure, other cuts like the dark
"Lost Empire" and the more eased back
"Beyond the Gateway of Legends," almost sounding like a
Dio cut, follow the same structure. But it is cuts like
"The Ark (of Covenant)," the pop driven
"Across the Seven Seas" with it's jazzy piano riffs and eastern ethnic world music toying, and
"Nemesis" that keep the record within the heavy realm in relation to many
Stratovarius and
Blind Guardian cuts. But what concept album would be complete without ballads or eased back cuts, like
"Beyond the Gateway of Legends" mentioned earlier and
"Great Exploration" follows a dark eased back pace, but yet remains thick with a heavy atmosphere; the main ballad on this record is
"White Sands (California Lighthouse)," which is in relation to ballads performed by Lana Lane or The Gathering, due to the fact that female vocalists add to the dimension among Parry's high tenor.
The production on "Terra Incognita" is fairly tight, with a spacious and discrete mix, regardless of the layers upon layers of instrumentation. With this project defiantly going beyond many conceptual releases, or should I say attempts, and with the whole concept and musicianship in place, we can only hope that this is not the final installment within Parry's scope of projects.
Written by
Hashman Monday, October 13, 2003
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