Zonder / Wehrkamp
If It's Real

THE REVIEW

The drummer of a band fundamental to the development of a genre and the guitarist and multi-instrumentalist of a band important for the affirmation of the same genre, it was almost obvious that expectations would be high. Former Fates Warning drummer Mark Zonder and Shadow Gallery guitarist Gary Wehrkamp together for a project simply titled Zonder / Wehrkamp. A project rather distant from progressive metal and instead focused on light and melodic music.

However, the results did not quite live up to expectations. Even the choice to feature the two musicians on the cover is not the happiest (let's leave photo-promotional covers portraying the band or the singer to chart-topping pop singers or boybands, thank you), but it seems that, in general, everything is done with a bit too much indifference. Melodies certainly well constructed with delicate guitars and harmonious vocal lines, very delicate and atmospheric keyboard layers, but everything never goes beyond or takes off, no memorable moment that can truly make a mark. The main disappointment, however, is Zonder; we're talking about a drummer who, with his joining Fates Warning thirty years ago, gave the band a shake-up, bringing it to technical levels never reached before, here instead he offers a stingy drumming, overly minimalist, often resorting to fruitless electronic percussion that does not do justice to his name. In general, even the production is not very brilliant, it appears a bit dull.

Everything seems gathered under the word sufficiency, a good melodic little disc that I often listened to during the summer, but much more was to be expected. Probably a record and a project we didn't really need, time that Wehrkamp could have used to finally give us a new Shadow Gallery album, missing for more than 10 years now; maybe if a fire hadn't devastated his home and recording studio, things would have gone differently.