Progressive RockMetal
Temic’s eagerly awaited debut has arrived. Its members are guitarist Eric Gillette (Neal Morse Band, Mike Portnoy’s Shattered Fortress), singer Frerik Klemp (Maraton), drummer Simen Sandnes (Arkentype), and keyboardist Diego Tejeida (ex-Haken, Mike Portnoy’s Shattered Fortress). As résumés go, that’s quite something.
The album opens with an introduction titled “TMT”. The composition is split into two parts, led by piano in the first and by keyboards trying to convey unease in the second. Everything builds toward a closing variation on the main theme.
And so we get down to business with the riff of “Throug the Sands of Time”, which flows into a very soft section, where the voice gives us the piece’s motif, followed by a chorus that the full band will later repeat in various ways. As the first solos arrive, we get a fairly classic feel with a taste of Dream Theater. Klemp’s delicate, subtle voice develops beautifully against intense, powerful instrumentation, offering a lovely contrast and a gentleness not often found in progressive metal.
Almost without a break, we get “Falling Away”, where the sweetness of the voice comes up against Sandnes’s authoritative drumming. The dynamic of speeds and stops works really well, with flawless playing from the whole band on a track that seems standard but isn’t, and is of great quality.
“Count Your Losses” lays out a series of powerful, quite technical riffs, pulled off by Tejeida and Gillette, who are excellent musicians and make sure to prove it in the chorus with devilishly precise, fast figures. Personally, I think they overdo it, and all that muscle-flexing can end up looking a bit comical; Sandnes, by contrast, makes better use of his moment in the spotlight, in a more measured way. But it would also be unfair to let these details overshadow a really good track, since it has remarkable intensity and demolishing class.
And they keep landing blows with “Skeletons”, whose introduction this time has a style typical of Symphony X. The chorus is, once again, catchy and pleasant; for me, Klemp’s approach to these tracks is a real strength. Here we get a fairly wild middle section, full of keyboard solos and thrilling foundations under Gillette’s dizzying guitar solo. It’s a track rich in this interplay of relentless technical performances, vocal delicacy, and force of insultingly precise accuracy.
A brief respite is offered on “Acts of Violence”, where a fine melody and delicate keyboards, accompanied by exquisite drumming played with brushes (not the toilet kind — the drum kind: brushes), lead the track’s first half into a guitar solo bursting with all the rock they’d been saving up. The second half acts as a coda to what came before, but with the character of a thoroughly cohesive band, and an almost a-cappella conclusion that ends abruptly.
And in case we hadn’t realised we’re dealing with a progressive-metal band, we can give a listen to the instrumental “Friendly Fire”. It’ll delight genre fans, since it takes no prisoners. Every good practice of the style is here, with Tejeida’s fun keyboards especially standing out, taking full centre stage, and in the closing section they could easily be mistaken for a guitar.
Returning to that riff-and-soft-vocal-track idea has arguably already been used enough on this album to say that “Paradigm” overuses it. Yes, it’s a good composition, but similar to others. Given that we’re looking at 58 minutes of music, it would have been advisable to hold it back, since it gives us a real sense of déjà vu.
Truth is, Tejeida is an original, witty keyboardist, as shown by the “cuckoo” motif he stubbornly repeats throughout “Once More”. The drum production used in the chorus is also surprising — I thought it was programmed, but Temic themselves set us straight, since it’s all played live, entirely by Simen Sandnes, so we’re editing the review to thank them for the correction.
A quick look at Wikipedia tells us “Mothallah” is a star in the Triangulum constellation. Far away from here, as they say. The track is excellent and epic, a wonderful finale. That said, it reminded me a bit too much of the ostinato from Haken’s “Nil by Mouth”, which shouldn’t really surprise us, remembering that Mr Tejeida was an important part of that band. But I’ll stress that you can still thoroughly enjoy it, because — how many songs out there don’t remind us of others?
And speaking of “Mothallah”’s backing vocals: the most diehard progressive-metal fans will probably find the voices and melodies too soft, almost pretty-metal territory. But for me, that’s exactly what makes Temic different, rather than just “another one”. Because bands with great technical skill in this style are fairly common these days, so this particular trait is very welcome to me, giving the band character and an identity that adds up to a fantastic debut. Phenomenal.
Drop by their social channels and support them — they’ve made a sensational album.
Writer: David Sàez