Zero Hour
Specs Of Pictures Burnt Beyond

Is it still possible to play progressive metal without offering something that feels like "already heard," without paying dues to the more renowned bands commonly identified as pioneers and creators of this genre? Certainly... although, often within this "genre" (but perhaps it would be more correct to talk about "attitude"), there is the risk of wanting to appear forcibly original, of creating contaminations and hybrids between musical genres only to cause astonishment or, worse, there is the danger of filling embarrassing creative and compositional gaps with performances that are as perfect as they are cold and academic. If this consideration seems obvious, less obvious is that a band manages to get out of the dead end it has put itself in, quickly finds its identity, and resumes its evolution.

This, by and large, seems to be the path that, for the past two years, this extraordinary band has been taking, although unfortunately, I'm sure few know them (also because, for the type of musical offering, it has always been an underground formation).

Zero Hour, Americans from San Francisco, have stood out since their first album ("Zero Hour" from '99, re-released with the addition of two bonus tracks in 2003 under the title "Metamorphosis") for a very recognizable, obsessive, schizophrenic sound, characterized by a pounding, powerful, syncopated rhythm section often doubled by the guitar (frequently dedicated to a very clean "sweep picking" work), and a tense and dramatic vocal style, almost always settled on high pitches but never raucous. "The Towers Of Avarice," released in 2001, picks up all these features and definitively sharpens the stylistic coordinates of the band, if possible, further intensifying them. The progressive metal, already complex in itself, presents in this album unusually aggressive, dehumanized, distressing, and apocalyptic qualities and, despite the sometimes exaggerated technique, truly exciting. Unfortunately, there are too few emotions in the subsequent "A Fragile Mind" (2005), which suffers from the departure of singer Eric Rosvold (replaced by Fred Marshall), and a compositional vein that seems to rely mainly on the technical prowess of the musicians and their well-tested musical recipe. The album is not bad, mind you, but unusually flat, and the songs rather boring.

A year later, with this "Specs Of Pictures Burnt Beyond," the band seems to have been reborn, strong with songwriting returned to high levels and especially the addition to the line-up of the phenomenal vocalist Chris Salinas, one of the most technical and at the same time emotional singers I have ever heard, with a vocal range comparable only to that of Daniel Gildenlöw of Pain of Salvation, comfortable in both low and high (indeed, very high) pitches. The album is a whole alternation of whirling broken rhythms, often executed in unison by guitar, bass, and drums (by now a trademark of Zero Hour), of rarefied breaks, of ethereal and dreamy guitar arpeggios, and of vocals that change suddenly as if they were mood swings. What is surprising is that, despite the music offered is not easy at all, the atmospheres created are absolutely engaging, even if concentration during listening is a must not to get lost in the intricate riffing produced by Jasun Tipton's seven-string guitar and Salinas' vocal evolutions. The only flaw of the work (although for technique lovers this is not necessarily a bad thing) is, in some cases, the self-indulgence that the guys still have regarding their technical skills, sometimes flaunted at the expense of the overall economy of the tracks, but this venial act can, in general, be forgiven.

What to say? Hoping that this group achieves the fame it deserves, I recommend lovers of "demanding" music to give them a listen, perhaps starting with this album.