Legend of the Bone Carver

I’m a sucker for a good story, even if it is derived from one of the most well known compilation of books in human history. The lone figure, the faithful child who follows his predestined faith and breathes life into the bones of the dead, cannot help but remind of the first half of Ezekiel 37, better known as “The Valley Of The Dry Bones”. There is something of a pagan mystique to this telling in the means of his powers of resurrection (the lone prayer of a faithful innocent and a prophetic birth paralleling the Gospel not withstanding) and an unambiguous yet not wholly defined struggle between good and evil, but the spirit of the triumph of one all-powerful healer defeating legions of destroyers by regenerating the dead is a dead ringer for the Old Testament parable. This is the essence of what makes a good power metal concept album, a clear cut struggle with an attention to both familiarity and brevity, and “Legend Of The Bone Carver” is the latest to offer its take on the style.

From a musical standpoint, this album isn’t all that far of an evolutionary leap from Pyramaze’s auspicious and widely hailed debut album “Melancholy Beast”. The same musicians are in congress, the production team is the same and that magical blend of atmospheric, rhythmically intricate progressive metal and catchy, hook driven majesty delivers the goods from one song to the next. Analogies could be made to Pagan’s Mind in terms of their spacey atmosphere and Lance King’s channeling of Geoff Tate and John Arch, but this is not nearly as shred happy and is more geared towards painting a general picture and treats guitar and keyboard solos as more of a side issue. In other words, this is an album where the music is geared towards the concept, and a military-like precision and consistency in songwriting comes along with it.

This is driven more so by atmosphere and melody than by riff assault, bearing out some similarities to Dark Moor at times, albeit with a much slower feel. The typical structure of an instrumental intro and ending which features heavy keyboard involvement and smatterings of voice-over narrations to fill in any gaps in the story left by the prototypical verse/chorus songs rules the listen, but the character is much more melancholy. Even when the tide turns in the story and the dead rise to reclaim their world from darkness, there is this fatalistic cynicism wrapped in the musical content that is almost a perfect foil for the lighter yet more tragic concept album “Ocean’s Heart” out of Dreamtale just 3 years prior. In the same respect as said album, there is an extremely basic approach to songwriting working her that makes this highly accessible.

Perhaps the greatest flaw in the concept album model is the issue of individual songs not being able to stand on their own, but this problem is noticeably absent here. “The Birth” and “Ancient Words Within”, in particular really standout with a solid blend of Iron Maiden inspired melodic guitar hooks meshed with frequent time changes. In similar fashion, “What Lies Beyond” takes that classic NWOBHM pioneered galloping riff approach and muddles it with some syncopated elements, while keeping everything at play compatible with the overarching atmospheric tendencies of the whole. Even the token ballad “She Who Summoned Me”, with the now cliché duet with an angelic soprano approach, can’t help but sound fresh and heartfelt, not to mention providing the most salient points in the story’s plot, apart from the instrumental voiceover on “Blood Red Skies”, which almost overstates the coming musical conclusion with its sense of drama.

In terms of flash and flair, this obviously takes the backseat to Outworld when matching up progressive yet catchy as hell metal releases circa 2006, let alone the obvious divide in the level of grit and aggression. But for what it is, “Legend Of The Bone Carver” rivals said band’s debut and lone release, along with the vast majority of other albums put out under the power/progressive umbrella. Good storytelling and a keen sense of emotional expressionism picks up where the lack in shred fests leave off here, and make this essential listening for all who go in power metal directions with these lyrical themes, be it the lighter side in Freedom Call, or the heavier in that of Blind Guardian. Not to mention that the story contained within these 10 songs would make an excellent novel.

Originally submitted to (www.metal-observer.com) on January 20, 2011.

I downloaded this for a lot of reasons, but mostly because Matthew Barlow is in this band now and their next album will be their debut with him on vocals. I figured I'd see what they were all about. Pyramaze play progressive power metal in the vein of Pagan's Mind crossed with Nevermore. How funny, my favorite band and one of my least favorite bands. Anyway, this band is extremely talented, with production that will blow your fucking head off if you turn this album up all the way. Their guitar team cranks out some midpaced, grinding riffs and then some loopy, soaring solos while the keyboardist gives the entire thing this very mystical, spiritual vibe that's very, very cool. The drum and bass do their jobs well, but don't stand out as phenomenal compared to the aforementioned guitar/keyboard team. So basically, if this were an instrumental album, it might be pretty good.

The first thing that's wrong with this album though, is Lance King's vocals. He sings in a falsetto, and at first listen, he sounds great. The band uses several multi-tracked vocals on the chorus that enhance his preformance and it all sounds fine and dandy. But subsequent listens are not as pleasing. The best comparison for his vocals that I can think of is James LaBrie or Geoff Tate trying to do a Warrel Dane impression, and that is not good at all. King is not as bad as Dane is, but that's not saying much. He's got some talent, but he just manages to annoy the hell out of me most of the time. He just has this SLIGHT whining tone to his voice that grates on my last fucking nerve, and I'm really glad he's not in the band anymore.

This album is very inane and dull. Before I sat down to write this review, I couldn't even sit through the whole thing once. I think there's a reason for this. There's some sort of concept to this album about a bone carver who has to save the world, or some shit like that (I haven't bothered to research it), and it seems pretty generic and contrived, not original at all. In most concept albums, all the songs sort of fit together like a puzzle, with none of them standing out as exceptionally awesome or exceptionally awful. Like the story, the songs are all meshed together into a tapestry of musical ideas. Now, with some concept albums (Helstar's Nosferatu and Slough Feg's Traveller), where all the songs are good, you don't really care about this and just enjoy the album as a whole. But with this album, none of the songs are that great at all, and I just end up bored as hell, wanting to turn on something else. The band's musicians may be talented and polished, but the songwriting here just doesn't do anything for me.

There is also not much emotion put into this. If you're going to play power metal or heavy metal, you need some real energy put into it, or else your music becomes stagnant and stale. Pyramaze make very average music, and it fails to excite me in the least. Even when they have some cool moments (the opening riff on "The Bone Carver" is very cool, and made me headbang a bit), they just dip back down into Nevermore-esque sludge with some mildly cool keyboard wizardry. A lot of the riffs sound kind of alike, and none of them really make me want to headbang, save for the opening one to "Bone Carver." It seems like toward the second half of the album, they started getting more creative...but the songs always end up as boring and pointless. Very fucking odd.

This isn't really a bad album, and I don't hate it...but it just leaves me kind of cold in the end. I might not even delete it, but it's not something I'll listen to very often. Pyramaze are on the right track, they just haven't completely hit their mark yet. Recommended to progressive/power metal fans, you might enjoy it more then I did.

Pyramaze’s debut came out of nowhere to become one of my favorite progressive power metal discs of 2004. The best thing about it was its true mix of prog and aggressive power styles, being much heavier and more direct than a lot of material labeled as “prog power” while at the same time seeming relaxed and almost soothing. For the followup the band wisely chose to largely stay on the same path, and in doing so has surpassed the debut and cemented their spot as one of the leaders of the style.

The sound is essentially unchanged from before – Jacob Hansen’s back as producer and his work is as good as ever. Jonah Weingarten’s keyboards are even more of a focus, but still almost exclusively in a supporting ambient role, as opposed to a neoclassical power metal lead role. The guitars still walk that line between wandering melody and sharp, almost palm-muted riffing, and Morten Sorensen’s drumming, as with the debut, varies between all-out double bass attacks and rock-solid slower sections. It is worth noting that “Legend…” probably has fewer double-bass gallops than seen on “Melancholy Beast”, and generally is perhaps slightly slower overall. I often see this band mislabeled as sounding like Iced Earth, but this album should help dispel that notion. There might be an influence somewhere in there, but grabbing a Pyramaze disc expecting an IE-like romp is likely to leave you disappointed. Also, if your opinion of the debut was along the lines of “pretty good but they need to play faster and write catchier songs”, well, forget it.

The story of the disc – yep, it’s a concept album – revolves around humanity being destroyed by evil, only to be saved by the titular hero, he being a small child. Certainly not Heinlein level, but overall a decent story that’s easy to follow, though it does seem to end a bit too quickly. The star of the album, though, is vocalist Lance King. King gives quite a passionate performance and really helps make the story come to life. He may never be one of the top two or three vocalists in the scene, but he’s getting pretty close. One of the smoothest and most controlled voices around, very capable of projecting the emotion a story like this demands.

Overall the songs here are more compact than seen on the debut, with the longest one clocking in at around six minutes even. Nothing’s quite grabbed me yet like “Mighty Abyss”, but there are still plenty of winners, including “What Lies Beyond” (great chorus work by King) and “Souls in Pain”. Two of the songs are mostly keyboard-based affairs with speech-like vocals, mainly serving as interludes to advance the story. On their own they offer little value, but certainly could be worse. Besides, with concept albums, songs by themselves are generally allowed to seem pointless, as long as they fit well with the overarching story.

Pyramaze really ought to appeal to a wide range of metal fans. Anyone who enjoyed the debut should love this one, and fans of darker progressive metal might enjoy it as well. With a bit of hesitation I’d recommend it to power metal fans, with the disclaimer that it’s not nearly as catchy or overpowering as a lot of traditional power metal. The whole thing screams professionalism, from the performances to the writing, right down to the packaging. This is the kind of progressive power metal I can get into – stuff that doesn’t suffer from the “light in the pants” syndrome of some similarly-styled bands. It’s way too early to proclaim this a contender for any sort of album-of-the-year award, though it has to at least be considered as an early candidate in the prog/power category. As with most concept albums, it may take some time to sink in, but eventually you just might find yourself coming back for more and more. Now two albums in, Pyramaze is already looking to be an emerging leader in this genre alongside established bands like Lanfear and Pagan’s Mind.