I was in the mood for something metal today, but my first two choices were not available on my trusty Rhapsody software. So I move on to the third heavy release. And I'm familiar enough with the C&C music factory, I just haven't listened to an album all the way through yet.And yes, I know that this is a prequel, a fifth album in a storyline of the history of Battlestar Galactica or something like that. I realize that some of the lyrical themes may have been foreign to me. But a review on allmusic assures me that the themes are vague enough for the the average listener to latch onto.
All the while of course, knowing that the price of admission is really supposed to be going to the daring prog-rock instrumentation. The adventurous landscapes and broad Matisse paintings to embolden the colors in our ears' collective palettes.
So... where is this instrumentation? This is no ELP or Genesis or even Dream Theater. I can't see anything in this album to differentiate C&C from 30 Seconds to Mars or My Chemical Romance except that Claudio seems more like a Zappa-type storyteller than the Jared Leto or Gerard Way's version of frontman, which leans to the flag-waving pansy jihadist side.
"Pearl of the Stars" is nice enough turn on the ballad side, which even turns a hopeful-ballad lyric on its ear: "And when the world burns apart there'll be a place for your car." But other than that, it still follows basically the same path as any general alt. rock ballad track. It's scarcely different than that Hoobastank song.
And aside from the random cool riff here and there it's straight ahead emo rock. A high point is "World Of Lines"- but it's too slow a work in progress to build to that point only to have it drop to nothing again. Maybe I just don't get it, but if you want heavy and progressive... go here. Or shit... even here... (2 of 5 stars)
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