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Rating:
When I first listened to this album, I felt very disoriented because, honestly, from LaBrie, one would expect something different in terms of sound. But let's go in order.
This is the third solo work for the Dream Theater's singer, after the previous two under the name Mullmuzzler. The first thing you immediately notice is that in this record, LaBrie tries to explore musical territories that normally aren't part of his repertoire, and perhaps this choice somewhat penalizes the album. In fact, the stubborn search for extremely different sounds is too evident: it ranges from nu-metal to electronic music, even including scratches that frankly could have been easily avoided. This heterogeneity of sounds creates a lot of confusion for the listener; the music tends to become boring and at times seems already heard. A clear example of this can be seen in track 2, Alone, where it feels like listening to Fear Factory's album Demanufacture, or in other tracks where it seems reminiscent of Dream Theater's Train Of Thought; even the stubborn use of vocal filters (which LaBrie now uses too much, even in Dream Theater) in my opinion diminishes the great impact of the voice that any lover of this artist knows well.
Now, I want to clarify that not everything here should be dismissed, on the contrary, someone who likes a certain type of sound might even appreciate this work a lot. Some tracks are appreciable both stylistically and in terms of sound impact, but they always present the limitations I mentioned above.
What raises this album is LaBrie's great performance, confirming him as one of the greatest singers on the planet, and the extraordinary performance of Marco Sfogli on guitars, 25 years old, from Campania, one of the greatest talents currently present on the world scene, even considering his young age.
In conclusion, this album can be seen as a work that fully reaches adequacy but does not go beyond, certainly far from the successful Keep It To Yourself (LaBrie's first solo work).
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