Thought Industry has always been one of those bands that you either love or hate. Me, I love 'em. TI is an example of what progmetal could be - visionary, strange, unpredictable, and VERY relistenable.
The band's leader, singer Brent Oberlin, obviously fancies himself a poet. In many cases, having a poet for a singer is a terrible thing to happen to a band. Here, however, the man actually is a poet of some significant talent, and his dark, brooding, sometimes violent lyrics make perfect sense with the music that is going on behind them.
The music itself is a book waiting to be written. My first reaction to their first album, "Songs for Insects," is the reaction I still get when listening to it: this is the most complex album I've ever heard. It doesn't make sense to try to compare TI's music to other bands. "Insects" does the same thing for metal that Gentle Giant did for progrock twenty years ago, in that it invents a totally new palette of sounds and textures.
On their latest album, "Outer Space Is Just A Martini Away," TI seems to have moved towards a more mainstream songwriting structure. But that doesn't mean verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus, either: when TI does a four-minute song, it's still radical enough to stand up to repeated listens.
There's an ample amount of melody on this album, and enough time changes and abrupt wierdnesses to please any prog fan. Plus, it's blisteringly heavy. My favorite track on the album, "I'm Jack Frost Junior," is a perfect example of the band's style: alternately somber and harsh, melodic and mean. The fact that there is true intellect behind the growling makes it all the more satisfying. This is a must-buy.
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