Label: Metal Mind Productions
Release date: 21.02.2020
Production: Ian Parry
Album length: 44.45 min
Genre: Progressive Rock / Art Rock
Rating: 9.0/10
Ian Parry is no stranger to the rock’n’roll scene. He kicked off his music career in the early eighties. He’s one of the most technically and expressively seasoned and polished vocalists out there, and over the years he’s earned the status of a highly esteemed and respected singer among fans of his musical exploits. His voice is marked by incredible charisma and a trademark character that has always been one of the key ingredients giving the songs Parry sings on their artistic individuality and an instantly recognizable uniqueness. In his career, which has now run for almost 40 years, Parry has lent his voice to more than 30 different albums, first and foremost his solo studio work, the records released under Consortium Project, where Parry wielded the conductor’s baton, and of course the albums he recorded with the unforgettable Dutch prog-metal champions Elegy.
»In Flagrante Delicto« is a Latin album title that translates roughly as “caught in the act of a crime”. The choice is hardly surprising, since Parry has always liked reaching for Latin expressions when naming his projects and albums. It’s the fifth solo studio album from this artist overall, once again recorded and produced in his NSMP studio, with Parry naturally as the main author and composer, working more closely with guitarist Stephan Lill (Vanden Plas) and keyboardist Jeroen van der Wiel, whom Parry kept by his side after the two worked together on the »Rock Emporium« project (2015). The album’s title carries on the message of the previous »Visions« (2006), about awareness of an approaching (planet-wide) ecological catastrophe that we’re barreling toward, unstoppably, thanks to our own greedy vanity. In that sense the title is very telling – the crime was committed by humankind – and the main motif of the cover rounds it out. Parry gathered and sifted through the material for this new solo record for a very long time, so overall it’s highly polished, tightly focused and finely detailed. As such, it counts as one of the artistically most mature works of Parry’s entire musical career.
A whole bunch of outstanding musical virtuosos play on the album, and like Parry, they can boast multi-layered access to a whole range of genres and compositional challenges. This is Parry’s musical family, who have worked with him for years, either in his former bands or in his projects. A guarantee that always delivers the best. The songs can be loosely filed under punchy hard rock decked out in symphonic pomp, with exciting hints of intensified progressive-rock, and also classic metal, content. From start to finish the album stands out with a strong element of musical catchiness and a build-up of atmospheric bombast (top-class drama theater). It takes a few more spins, but once it gets into your “ears”, you’ll happily hit “repeat” on the player again and again.
The songs are very polished, then, each with its own carefully crafted character of expression, all with a remarkable compositional variety between them, and at times they’re downright thrilling, surprising with their witty chord progressions and progressiveness, in the sense of sudden shifts into (short and concise) instrumental passages that, with compatible modulations, deliver dynamic leaps in atmosphere and so keep the listener in constant “suspense” and glued to the record the whole way through. Parry keeps his passionate vocal drive, and the emotions in verses delivered with such zeal and passion come alive instantly. The constantly active dialogue between keyboards and guitar phrasing is downright fascinating, and the heap of details in the pinpoint transitional rhythm variations (under one and the same motif) underlines that these are truly top-notch musicians in the studio, who, within the otherwise compact song structures, still leave each other loads of room to spark off their own virtuosic flair and wit. A pinch of musical unpredictability, a kind of rondo, supplied under Parry’s baton by the exploring spirit of this gang of musicians, accompanies the album at every step.
It’s hard to pick out highlights. You simply have to enjoy the album from start to finish. As loud as possible, if only for the brilliant production. Compositionally, it recalls the approach of Parry’s colleague Arjen Anthony Lucassen. Also in how he enriched the arrangements, contrasting the mood by adding programmed sampling (the sampling in the opener Spaceman and in the title track). But despite that similarity, the result is (logically) wholly its own thing. You can feel the influences of seventies progressive rock as well as old-school hard rock pioneering, while the compositions keep their compactness, musicality and an innate sense of atmospheric build-up, which delivers a mood crescendo in bombastic chorus melodies, masterfully backed up many times with multiple vocal harmonies too.
»In Flagrante Delicto« is an exceptionally polished album with a musical charisma all its own, one that has been forged and developed over many years and so reached an extraordinary level of artistic maturity in the musical dossier that Ian Parry signs his name to. It’s not just a record that, alongside the singer-songwriter-style punch of its lyrical message, mainly highlights this musician’s top-notch technical sharpness and flexibility. This time, more than ever before in a long and rich career, it’s his exceptional compositional maturity that steps into the foreground.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Spaceman
2. Travellers (Across the Unknown Universe)
3. In flagrante delicto
4. Fool’s Paradise
5. Impulse
6. Ingenious
7. Wish
8. Fly
9. The Day We Stop Dreaming
10. So Far So Good
Musicians:
Ian Parry – vocals, keyboards
Stephan Lill (Vanden Plas, Consortium Project, Ian Parry – Visions) – guitar
Patrick Rondat (Jean Michel Jarre, Consortium Project, Elegy) – guitar
Timo Somers (Delain, Rock Emporium, Vengeance) – guitar
Bob Wijtsma – guitar
Mario Zapata – guitar
Jeroen van der Wiel (Rock Emporium, Odyssice, Thirteen) – keyboards
Joshua Dutrieux (Consortium Project, Elegy, Sensation White) – keyboards
Barend Courbois (Blind Guardian, Rock Emporium, Vengeance) – bass guitar
Torsten Reichert (Vanden Plas, Ian Parry-Visions) – bass guitar
Marcel van der Zwam (Consortium Project) – bass guitar
Guido Stöcker (Bodyguerra) – bass guitar
Casey Grillo (Queensrÿche, Kamelot, Consortium Project, Ian Parry-Visions) – drums
Imre Daun (Rock Emporium, Gypsy Rose, Brian Robertsons The Clan) – drums
Andreas Lill (Vanden Plas, Ian Parry-Visions) – drums
Garry King (Joe Lynn Turner Band, Rock Emporium) – drums
Sander Zoer – drums
Joyce Meuwissen – backing vocals
