Label: Frontiers Music Srl.
Release date: October 9, 2020
Production: Simone Mularoni
Album length: 55.50 min
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
DGM are Italian progressive metallers, today a relic of the vibrant prog-metal movement that blossomed at the turn of the millennium and started slowly fading around 2010. That movement covers the first generation of bands who took heavy inspiration from Dream Theater and everything they stood for. DGM are no newcomers. With the new “Tragic Separation,” they’ve got ten studio albums under their belt, having been around since 1994. The bit that’s especially fun about the DGM story is that there isn’t a single original founding member left in the band, and that the ‘weird’ band name is actually an acronym cooked up from the names of three former members who started it all (Diego, Gianfranco, Maurizio).
DGM really took off with the arrival of guitarist Simone Mularoni in 2006, who gradually grew into the band’s main songwriter. The previous album, “The Passage” (2016), was considered the most mature achievement of their career when it came out, and a top-notch record where DGM nailed the perfect blend of musicality, punch and technical complexity. In that sense, the long gap between “The Passage” and the new “Tragic Separation” was more than welcome, because the band faced a serious and hard-to-clear challenge: how to hold on to, or even top, that level of songwriting. In the meantime plenty of new ideas piled up, and despite the unfortunate turn of events that wrecked musicians’ plans at the start of this year, the band clearly managed to keep that highly creative momentum going and pour it into the new album. DGM started working on it last year.
Once again, the main driving engine, guitarist Simone Mularoni, has set up a perfect foundation for the band’s new studio album to grow from. The crew know each other really well and have a bagful of live experience, and as a sextet, with Marco Basile’s convincing vocal delivery (minus the “unfortunate” accent when singing in English), they’re a brilliantly oiled machine in every aspect of writing and interpreting ideas, one that will once again hit home with fans of Symphony X and, at certain points on the album, maybe even Pagan’s Mind. It goes without saying that all of them are huge fans of everything Dream Theater, but unlike those prog-metal giants mentioned a moment ago, they diligently stick to a priority where musicality and compact structure come before fragmenting the compositions. Progressive metal all too easily falls into that trap. Beyond the logical artistic link to the previous, excellent “The Passage,” DGM owe the biggest debt of musical inspiration to Symphony X (hence no surprise about their past tours together, or M. Romeo’s guest spot on one of the tracks on The Passage).
The songwriting is extremely distinctive, once again striking an excellent balance between catchiness (ultra-melodic choruses), penetrating punch, and just the right seasoning of technically complex elements. The album has a remarkably harmonious, well-fitting dialogue between these three building blocks, embodied by: infectious, well-crafted guitar riffs; top-class ultra-sonic, breathtaking guitar solos, where Mularoni’s fingers don’t lack fire for even a second; brilliantly placed keyboard arrangements that work “orchestrally,” with a neo-classical character added to the arrangements (e.g. the string intro in the title track) to make the whole thing feel even more “Italian”; the almost proverbial rhythm-breaking; and, above all, the already mentioned explosive vocal character.
With “Tragic Separation,” DGM have once again cashed in, full-blooded, on all the artistic wisdom and maturity that their previous record was packed with, and at the very least held on to the high quality of its predecessor “The Passage.” Add a brilliant production that greedily emphasizes sonic contrasts and pastel shades, guarantees the tightness of constantly shifting dynamics and moods, and, with all its variety of ideas and wit in the playing, makes for highly appealing listening from start to finish. Fans of DGM and of progressive metal in its classic (primal) essence couldn’t ask for more. A job done with great distinction, and once again a maturely, meticulously polished album that sits at the top of the band’s catalog so far.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Flesh And Blood (7:35)
2. Surrender (5:40)
3. Fate (5:47)
4. Hope (5:26)
5. Tragic Separation (7:38)
6. Stranded (5:36)
7. Land Of Sorrow (5:05)
8. Silence (5:55)
9. Turn Back Time (5:45)
10. Curtain (2:20)
Line-up:
Marco Basile – vocals
Simone Mularoni – guitar
Emanuele Casali – keyboards
Andrea Arcangeli – bass
Fabio Costantino – drums
