Artist: Terminal
Title: Tree Of Lie
Type: Album
Label: Revolution Records

Any band that claims to combine progressive metal, r’n’b and urban music should be commended for their ambition, but can it really be pulled off? The short answer for unfortunately named Terminal’s debut album ‘Tree Of Lie’ is a sad ‘no’. Whilst it would be very easy (understatement of the year) to chop this album to pieces, there are some things which can be salvaged from this album, and it’s certainly worthwhile dwelling on these for a while. The production is of a very high quality, and with chunky guitars and drums blending with the positively dazzling keyboards, the sound is actually very sophisticated and musically as well executed as you can get for what the band are trying to achieve. You don’t have to listen much further than the beautifully bubbling bass on ‘Evil Machine’ for an example of the clear sound on offer.

This brings us to the negatives, which are perhaps a wee bit overwhelming for any human being who may pick this one up. Whilst there are some sexy Planet X-style flourishes and progressive shed solos from Jacek Rychly and Patryk Zukowski on guitars and Daniel Gupa on keys, such as in the interesting ‘Together Apart’, the sheer bulk of this album consists of (albeit, slight more technical than the norm) nu-metal. Slab-heavy guitars and angst-ridden vocals, no matter how much you try and ‘prog-ify’ them with twiddly keyboards, will always fall back into the group of bands including Disturbed and Linkin’ Park. ‘Behind The Mask’ makes no attempt to hide this, with some straight-up rap passages. More to the point, this album lacks any kind of identity, setting the aforementioned rap-metal against the softer jazz-fusion of ‘Brand New Sin’ or ‘Deep Inside’, with its soft saxophone sections.

Combining prog and silly amounts of other things, Terminal have produced an album which is very good at what it attempts to be, that is, something so outmoded that it’s completely irrelevant in nearly every way. It’s too nu-metal for prog fans, and too complex for baggy-trousered teens - a technical blunder in too many ways.

http://www.myspace.com/terminalfm

James Young

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