Subterranean Masquerade
Suspended Animation Dreams

The Pink Floyd meet the Iron Maiden.

That's how this group was sold to me a few years ago now, I, having never listened to neither Pink Floyd nor Iron, but more than anything attracted by the very strange cover, similar to a drawing on skin, slipped the CD in not really knowing what to expect. Years later, I still haven't fully understood it.

This album is the lone jewel, unfortunately, of Subterrenean Masquerade, a progressive group from New York, which apart from a lost EP has no other releases, guitarist Tomer Pink in 2007 announced he was working on a second CD and then disappeared into thin air. In short, this album is unique, an experiment, and rarely have I found works that could come close to its sound, in some points similar to old school prog and folk, in others to a certain type of avant-garde metal from a decade ago. Dual vocals, with the male singer Paul Kuhr, who had been in the much more famous Novembers Doom, expressing both clean and in a beautiful, very raw growl without frills and the female voice of Yishai Swearts breathless and ethereal, able to creep into the sweetest folds.

The album is definitely varied in sounds, from industrial mixed with melancholic folk and jazz of "Suspended Animation Dreams" to the beautiful "Kind of blur," which offers a full, sweet sound that recalls a theme song or soundtrack, up to the progressive folk of "X" which closes the CD with choruses and a solo in full seventies style. The best tracks of the album "Wolf Among Sheep" and "Awake," the real suite of the album lasting 13 minutes, show a variety of sounds and a richness that describing them in their entirety would be pedantic, especially the second one, I can talk about its central part, however, which I loved and find one of the highest points of the entire album, where the old prog and the group's metal experimentation attitude perfectly unite: violins dominate, blending well with the more orthodox instrumentation and other decidedly singular, giving a tone halfway between tribal and dreamy, with flutes, keyboards and a very soft background drum bringing the song into a melancholic atmosphere with a guitar that leads a blues solo with distant litanies and truly appreciable female vocalizes culminating in screams, harrowing and all too real, disturbed whispers and the growl that mingles with the final solo. The album in its 8 compositions is rich with memorable and singular moments, with a sound that seeks stylistic elegance even in the various screams, growls and blast beats. But at the same time, it is not a confused album as one might think, the theme of the album often surfaces, and in the various lyrics, you understand that the album is a concept about induced dreaming, in the new age practice where the patient is immersed in a tub without external stimuli, and about the journey into a person's self and nightmares, showing us their paranoias and fears, including their terror of others' judgment, to a soft awakening, entrusted almost entirely to the choirs and the female voice, as to symbolize the awakening of a new man, now free from all previous burdens. But the lyrics are very dark, and this is just my interpretation.

In conclusion, an excellent album, that offers many points for reflection, especially after several listens, one of the albums that accompanied me in my musical growth and that I recommend to anyone who wants to approach certain fringes of alternative music, a combination of old and new, chaos and melodies, that to my ears sounds perfect and unrepeatable.