Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Symphony X
Label: Nuclear Blast
Released: 2011
Length: 63:10
Rating: 5/5
Symphony X albums always come loaded with heavy anticipation. Truth be told, Symphony X don’t exactly drop a record every other day, because they’re musical perfectionists. Sure, the golden age of progressive metal, when the masses were laser-focused on new releases, is somewhat behind us, but Symphony X, Angra, Vanden Plas, Threshold and Shadow Gallery (who, alongside the frontrunners Dream Theater, cemented the genre in the second half of the nineties) keep the genre remarkably coherent with fresh, inspired releases. Progressive metal as such keeps successfully absorbing new and newer bands (especially from Scandinavia) who follow in the footsteps of those mentioned above, like Circus Maximus, Vindictiv, Seventh Wonder etc… anyway, enough of an intro.
“Iconoclast” is an unbelievable album. At every single point it holds up the full quality of its predecessor “Paradise Lost”, an album “par excellence”, defined as the high point of the band’s artistic development, one that set a new milestone for the genre on one hand and fully defined the sound and path of the new Symphony X on the other. “Iconoclast” keeps that high level of quality and expression, and production-wise it comes across even more intense in the sheer destructiveness of its sound. What adds to that feeling is the fact that there are actually no mid-tempo or “ballad”-oriented songs on the album. Those parts are included as passages within complexly structured tracks, and the only song of that pedigree, where the calmer passages take the lead over the faster spice of motif “switches”, is the otherwise fantastic When All Is Lost.
If “Odyssey” was the album of transition, with perfected melodies and orchestrations baked into a metal riff, “V: The New Miythology Suite” into rawer, darker spheres of the kind that metal still knows in its subgenre factions, then “Paradise Lost” managed to fuse both elements into a perfectly balanced mix. “Paradise Lost” is a very dark album, and with “Iconoclast” Symphony X travel even deeper into their dark world. Michael Romeo sounds even more relentless in his riffing than ever. The riffing passages on “Paradise Lost” had already picked up elements of the unbridled riffing known from thrash metal, and “Iconoclast” intensifies that even further. So what we have here is the most wound-up, poisonously riffing Symphony X album yet!
“Iconoclast” also keeps up an exceptional (and in the prog metal world generally rare) quality of dynamic arranging, with a clearly marked touch of unpredictability and sudden swerves between many different moods, which the band handles on pure routine, since they’ve got five versatile instrumentalists who can play anything with feather-light ease. Whatever they dream up. They don’t overdo it at all, and the compactness of the songs holds the red thread together. That’s something Symphony X are especially prized for, since they’re among the best combiners in the progressive metal world when it comes to merging complexity with a clearly resolved, well-defined structure of seductive melodies.
The working temperature in the band is exceptional, and the members’ perception and understanding of each other is optimally compatible in every way. On “Iconoclast”, Symphony X as a quintet keep embodying, with their musical insight and wide-ranging taste, a musical body tuned to the same wavelength. That means the band enjoys a healthy creative climate in which their many ideas can be capitalized on effectively. So it’s almost superfluous to add that on “Iconoclast” too, for all the complexity on display, the individual contributions of each member slot together like pieces of a perfect puzzle into a multilayered mix that never stops thrilling you with the musical information and energy it delivers. Only here the effect of listening to the album once again carries a sense of maturing progress, which comes down to the band members’ growth, learning and accumulated experience.
Back on “Paradise Lost”, Russell Allen successfully crossed the aggressive growling vocals he began experimenting with on “Odyssey” with his “standard” ultra-melodic “Dio-like” approach, which really marks him as one of the finest singers in progressive metal. As such, Russell would be broadly useful in melodic hard rock too. And he is. His work on the more than successful Lande/Allen project proves it. Russell is once again hot-tempered, unshakably furious when that’s needed and demanded, which tips the scales in tracks like Bastards Of The Machine toward aggression and darkness over strung-together captured moods. Again, by combining both approaches he embodies the ideal mix of aggression and pompous ceremony through gritty-versus-clean contrasts between verse and chorus in most of the album’s songs. That’s emphasized especially on the title track Iconoclast (with one of the album’s most predatory choruses), then Children Of A Faceless God, then Light Up The Night! And then we hit spots where the melodically clean approach takes absolute dominance, like in the song When All Is Lost. Russell often widens his room to maneuver for expressing emotion by splitting verses, leading one with a clean falsetto and attacking the next with aggressive growl (Heretic), and he sticks to that through the songs.
No matter how outstanding a singer Russell Allen is, the instrumentation naturally takes the main spotlight on the album. The superb flow of a highly compatible dialogue between keyboards and guitar, the sequences of solo passages the two trade back and forth, which fully ramps up the intensity of how things unfold in songs that keep the listener on edge with that unexpected development, gives “Iconoclast” a special charm too, one that in this band’s hands is once again unique. The keyboards keep effectively embodying the orchestral element. Pinnella really does work like a one-man orchestra. That’s no longer anything special for Symphony X, but it’s a trademark the band masters brilliantly and, once again, one of the main carriers of the highly melodic catchiness of the new songs and the album.
The songs have melodically polished, compact, finished choruses. Here, too, Symphony X are inspired and varied once again, and you’ll have to find your personal favorite yourself. The album ripples with highly vibrant moods from start to finish. You absolutely have to listen to it on headphones, because that’s the only way it gets under your skin with its full effect. It demands several spins, since we’re dealing with complexly structured content, a bag full of musical information. The drama theater is pushed toward an exceptional darkness, like on no Symphony X album so far. The moods in this wave, though, have shifted this time toward a greater emphasis on aggression, which in the grand total takes clear precedence over the orchestral ultra-melodic pomp the band devoted full attention to on “V: The New Mitholoy Suite”. The one relic on the new album that maintains a link with the past is the song When All Is Lost.
It’s worth mentioning that “Iconoclast” comes out in two versions. The first is a stripped-down, strictly commercial move by Nuclear Blast Records, released as a single CD. The second is a limited-quantity edition that came out as a double CD. That’s the version the band envisioned in their wishes. And so, the relevant one. The real deal.
“Iconoclast”, a lyrically conceptual work telling of the dominance of machines over humankind, is thus an album where Symphony X have once again pulled off a huge hit. They’ve intensified the destructiveness of their sound, and the contrast of dark atmospheres is even stronger than before. At the same time they’ve carried all the typical elements, the trademarks of their style, into this new album so that they’re clearly present and on display. That’s why they’ve taken a new step forward in development. “iconoclast” is an album that was more than worth waiting a full four years for. Just as it was for “Paradise Lost”, the same goes for “Iconoclast”. A new, perfect Symphony X album!
Lineup
Russell Allen – vocals
Michael Romeo – guitar
Michael Pinnella – keyboards
Michael Lepond – bass
Jason Rullo – drums
Production
Michael Romeo
Track list
regular edition (single CD):
1. Iconoclast
2. The End of Innocence
3. Dehumanized
4. Bastards of the Machine
5. Heretic
6. Children of a Faceless God
7. Electric Messiah
8. Prometheus (I am Alive)
9. When All Is Lost
special edition (double CD):
CD 1.:
1. Iconoclast
2. The End of Innocence
3. Dehumanized
4. Bastards of the Machine
5. Heretic
6. Children of a Faceless God
7. When All is Lost
CD 2.:
1. Electric Messiah
2. Prometheus (I Am Alive)
3. Light Up the Night
4. The Lords of Chaos
5. Reign in Madness
