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: : Quest : :
Pursuit is an Iowa based band, and Quest is their second release. When
their first, self-titled album was released isn't stated anywhere, not
even on the band's homepage, so I really don't know how long these guys
have been playing together.
They have released this album themselves it would seem - kudos for that.
I do have a tendency to like bands that do their own thing, and due to
that alone I was looking forward to hear what this album was all about.
First impressions before listening to the actual music was a bit mixed
though. The cover art, album logo and such isn't nice. It's bad. Really
bad, in my eyes. On the plus side, it seems that the band has spent
much time with the lyrics here. The lyrics are of a very distinct
religious nature, which I know has a tendency to scare away quite a few
potential listeners. For my sake, that really doesn't matter. I can live
quite nicely with religious lyrics, as long as the music is ok.
When those facts and opinions are stated - onwards to the music. And,
unfortunately, I can't really recommend this album as such.
These guys aren't master musicians. That's ok, even musicians with a
below average skill level can produce excellent music. These guys I
think will rate as average musicians; as I'm not a musician myself my
verdict there is clearly an opinion rather than a fact. These guys are
ambitious as well. They try to incorporate 70's prog like Kansas, AOR,
straight metal and prog metal into their music. And I think that they
have the technical skill to do so as well. But there are other aspects
that's much lacking here - technically I think these guys are competent
enough, the "but" factor lies elsewhere.
After spending two hours really listening to this album - I have made
some conclusions regarding why this album doesn't work:
The drummer: He's ok in
the metal parts of the songs, but whenever the other guys changes pace
and style, he's still playing metal drums. A bold experiment maybe, but
in my ears it sounds really wrong. I think it really disrupts the
overall feel and flow of the songs, and has an overall destructive
effect on how the songs work.
The breaks: Most of the songs contains multiple breaks, where the guys
switch from one style to another, or just inserts a mood piece before
going from one style to the next. In my ears, the breaks just aren't
performed well in most of the cases. Instead of functioning as
transitional pieces leading the flow of the song from one part to the
next, more often than not the breaks stop the overall flow and feel of
the song before the next part starts.
Mixing and structure: In most of the songs, there is just too much
happening at once regarding how the instruments are utilized. Production
and mixing of the songs is partly to blame for that, but also the
structure of the songs isn't well enough thought out here. The result is
that some or more parts of each song just doesn't gel, and the overall
soundscape becomes a jumbled mix where the instruments seems to be
fighting for their place in the song rather than supporting and filling
out for the other instruments.
This may look like a total slaughter of the album - and to some extent
it is. But, there is a but here, when all of the above is said, there
are parts and pieces of each song that are worth listening to, for the
curious-minded.
Personally, I would have loved listening to a reproduction of this
album, with a different drummer, good production and some restructuring
of the songs. Because hidden between and beneath all the parts that
doesn't work on this album, lies the foundations for what might have
been a quite good release.
Rating: 4 (out of 10)
Reviewer: Olav Björnsen
: : Visit the Artist’s Website : :
: : Discography : :
Quest (2004)
Pursuit (unknown) |
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