Label: Wells Music
Release date: October 9, 2020
Production: Dean Wells
Length: 69.11 min
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
Teramaze are Australian modern prog-metallers who put out their first album way back in the mid-nineties. Let me cut straight to the essentials about the band’s sound, which should be a handy compass for anyone who doesn’t know them yet. These guys approach progressive metal the modern way. In other words, it’s all about keeping the music accessible, without flexing their technical muscles too much. Melody and atmosphere come first. For comparison’s sake, and even though there are real, concrete artistic differences between the bands I’m about to name, Teramaze will sit closer to the taste of people who like following the sound and style of acts like The Dear Hunter, Caligula’s Horse or Voyager than Dream Theater. Teramaze have little to nothing in common with Dream Theater apart from the genre tag, and that tag absolutely needs the adjective “modern” stuck onto it. That adjective is mostly a generational thing, even though the band’s leader and guitarist Dean Wells, who also took over the lead vocals on the new album, is already a seasoned old hand.
The band keeps steering its music and style further and further toward maximizing catchiness, and shamelessly flirts with pop rhetoric tricks along the way. On that account, Teramaze keep diligently pruning back the bristling guitar phrasing on “I Wonder” too. That was typical of the band’s earlier days, and they started drifting away from it with their fourth album “Esoteric Symbolism” (2014).
Since the previous album “Are We Soldiers” (2019), Wells has realized that the band, which had grown into a sextet back then with the returning vocalist Brett Rerekuro, works perfectly well as a classic four-piece. So the lineup shrank from six musicians to four, and Wells took over the lead vocals completely. And he does a fine job. For someone who’s first and foremost a guitarist, more than fine.
The album’s atmosphere is mostly melancholic, yet at times Teramaze can even cast a dreamy spell on the listener and “cerebrally” lift them right out of the real world. The production is excellent and modern-sounding, with just the right balance of sonic building blocks and just the right dialogue between guitars and keyboards, full of mostly synthesized sound pastels. The clean, musical vocal approach has enough presence to earn credibility and general likability. Dean is certainly not one of those top-shelf vocalists you can count on one hand, but for the expressive range of “I Wonder”, he delivers enough conviction to guarantee the album high likability and credibility.
The album is a bit too long, in the sense that at times Teramaze come at you with almost too much musicality, or stretch the calmer passages out too far. It’s also interesting that the nearly nine-minute Deep State Of Awake doesn’t guarantee flawless excitement. It gets too drawn-out in places, and not even the screechy vocals of guest singer Jason Wisdom of the American band Death Therapy can wake it up. The very pursuit of musical compactness is the reason the band tells the whole story of the new album well before its total running time would suggest. Still, you can feel that over the years Teramaze have become very, very good composers and arrangers, which goes especially for leader Dean Wells, of course. That’s confirmed by the grabby hooks in the excellent opener Ocean Floor, in the next one, Only Daylight, and in the way the vocal melodies develop in the gradually dynamic Here To Watch You. All of that keeps the album inspired, with a crafty catchiness that combines prog-metal complexity with a softer, melodic pop element. Yes, the breakdowns are present and accounted for, and they’re a very welcome bit of variety in individual passages, but on “I Wonder” they’re concisely balanced and placed within the songs as just an extra pinch of spice. Wells also goes off on atmospheric excursions several times, like the closing solo of opener Ocean Floor, where he steers completely clear of virtuoso excess and replaces it with a dose of carefully placed, long, wailing notes backed by a strong sustain effect.
Because of that occasional, almost excessive musicality, the album comes across as predictable (Sleeping Man, Run). That doesn’t mean the arrangements are slipping, though. It’s just less engaging, so in those moments the way it unfolds is more predictable. But the album really comes alive in the closing stretch, with the excellent Idle Hands/The Devil’s Workshop, This Is Not A Drill and especially the closing title track. That one is compositionally the album’s best creation, and the right pick for the band’s finale. Compositionally, the opening and closing parts are the most tempting. In these songs the band struck, in the most successful way, a truce between technical complexity and a calm gaze toward pop musicality. That confirms all its quality and, last but not least, its artistic individuality, which got it through yet another transformation of its musical vision.
“I Wonder” is a very good album. A mature, successful and bold step on the band’s evolutionary path. Given the continued shift toward musical melodiousness, you can expect that the band’s development is far from finished with “I Wonder”. Compared to its predecessor “Are We Soldiers”, Teramaze haven’t lost anything with the new album. They got through the switch back to a quartet without a hitch and delivered a studio effort that’s at least its equal. This is an excellent, highly listenable progressive metal record that, for all its musical accessibility, carries a strong and daring streak of complexity. That streak brings bold shifts of mood throughout the album, and keeps it compelling even for the more demanding music gourmets out there.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Ocean Floor (6:17)
2. Only Daylight (7:32)
3. Lake 401 (3:37)
4. A Deep State Of Awake (8:44)
5. Here To Watch You (6:44)
6. Sleeping Man (5:00)
7. Idle Hands/The Devil’s Workshop (9:16)
8. RUN (5:32)
9. This Is Not A Drill (8:40)
10. I Wonder (7:48)
Lineup:
Dean Wells – vocals, guitar, keyboards
Chris Zoupa – guitar
Andrew Cameron – bass guitar
Nick Ross – drums
Guest vocalist:
Jason Wisdom (Death Therapy) – track no. 4
