Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Bayley, Blaze
Label: Blaze Bayley Recordings
Release: 2016
Length: 47:28
Rating: 3.5/5
Four years after »The King of Metal« (2012) came out, soulful old uncle Blaze Bayley is back on the metal scene. You know him all too well from his five-year affair with Iron Maiden and from fronting the once-again active Wolfsbane. »Infinite Entanglement« is actually Bayley’s fourth album as a solo artist, but if you add the three before it that came out under the Blaze band name, which seems perfectly reasonable, it’s his seventh album in total since he left Iron Maiden.
Considering the creative bankruptcy and heartfelt emptiness of its predecessor, which is anything but an album worthy of the title »The King of Metal«, »Infinte Entanglement« fixes the taste in a lot of ways and puts Bayley back on the old tracks of his own songwriting. It’s closer to the days of the excellent »Promise and Terror« (2010) and the best of the lot, »A Man Who Would Not Die« (2008). »The mouthy, forever-grumbling little metal pipsqueak« made a very smart, well-thought-out move, by the way, when he decided to rush out a double-CD compilation of his best music, »Soundtracks of My Life« (2013), right after »The King of Metal«. The two new songs on it optimistically hinted at a possible surge of creative inspiration for the next studio album.
»Infinte Entanglement« is the first part of a conceptual trilogy created by none other than Blaze himself. The sci-fi concept hurls us 100 years into the future. Am I human or machine? A bit of both. Blaze has always been drawn to cosmology, to what human identity is, to passing through different states of consciousness. In short: the main character is a person (or a creation of a person) of the future, whose memories, like »fleeting outlines«, drag him back into the past and reveal answers to the eternal questions of being and not being, of the individual’s mission, of his defiance, sustained by devotion and faith in the beliefs you live and fight for. It’s about the game of manipulators who control your life. With one elementary purpose: to keep your identity and fulfill yourself through the deeds of your mission. No bowing to conformity. In these crazy times the concept is rebellious and, frankly, blasphemous. But there’s no other way. Either the flawed system we’ve been slaves to for over 2000 years falls, or the planet washes us off its surface pretty soon.
Anyway. This album will be followed by the second and third parts of the same story. Let’s just hope they come at proper intervals. »Infinite Entanglement« is an unmistakable Blaze Bayley album. Not only is it saturated with Bayley’s authoritative vocal approach, recognizable a mile away, which brings the music the required dose of gloom and theatrical drama, it also stylistically holds on to Bayley’s way of composing, from which it’s not hard to draw parallels with the two Iron Maiden albums he contributed his own songwriting ideas to. In short: all in all, the album is decent and good quality. A true Blaze Bayley album, which could have been even a bit better if the crew had bothered to spend studio time polishing some of the finer details. Especially in widening the instrumental passages, and in dramatizing how things develop in the middle instrumental sections. The album gives off an occasional feeling that Bayley’s vocals are a little too much everywhere, and even come across as pushy. Still, most of the songs carry the right atmosphere of bombast, with mighty, sing-along melodies in the choruses that fans of his music will take to their hearts in no time. The songwriting approach on the new album, then, stays inherited from Iron Maiden.
»Infinite Entanglement« still hides a few songwriting reserves, since some otherwise mature musical ideas could have used better arrangements. Even so, it puts Blaze Bayley back in his old spot in the metal universe, and after the »flop« The King of Metal« it restores the singer’s credibility as a songwriter and performer. With his new lineup of permanent members, Bayley has also secured performing and arrangement coherence within the band, which matters a lot, both for keeping things stable and for building on the ideas we’ll witness in the continuation of Bayley’s sci-fi concept.
Blaze Bayley – Human (video):
Lineup
Blaze Bayley – vocals
Chris Appleton – guitar
Karl Schramm – bass
Dan McNee – drums
Production
Blaze Bayley
Tracklist
1. Infinite Entanglement
2. A thousand years
3. Human
4. What Will Come
5. Stars are Burning
6. Solar Wind
7. The Dreams of William Black
8. Calling You Home
9. Dark Energy 256
10. Independence
11., A Work of Anger
