Twinspirits - The Forbidden City
2009 Lion Music
They are certainly not hitting any sophomore slump with their second record The Forbidden City, as Italy's Twinspirits are keeping melodic progressive metal real. Their first, The Music That Will Heal The World hearkened the sounds of Images & Words & Rage for Order, where the hook laden melodic stance was on a collision course with heavy grooves and sophisticated arrangements - this is no exception.
With keyboardist/composer/producer Daniele Liverani (Genius Rock Opera) at the helm with the unity of bassist Alberto Rigoni, axeman Tommy Ermolli, drummer Dario Ciccioni, and new vocalist Göran Nyström, the groove is headed up with big, lush arrangements that offer up catchy hooks and riffs, solos that are of course, technical, yet classy - all of this between the powerful interplay of both Rigoni & Ciccioni holding up the backbone that brings up the boldness factor for this record. The title tracks opens up the The Forbidden City with it's sinister piano lines, leading up the heavy undulations of melodies from the synth and guitars that follow; signaling the darkened path that this record will follow throughout. The curveball is thrown with the second track, a ballad already upon us called "Taste the Infinity" which heightens the passionate overtones even more. Through the Sabbathy, low tuned riffage of "Everything," the jam session of "BTR," the Rainbow reminiscent "Reaction," and the epical "I Am Free," The Forbidden City sees the band going above and beyond what they did on their last album - yes you have the big songs in place with the knack for compositional flow taking a step forward, but the lyrics and the musical might is at a higher level, vigorous with intrigue without going overboard.
Certainly a big player in the world of thought minded aggressive melodies, they should not be overlooked by any means, for we have another 'silver lining' in the world of progressive metal to be heard this year. Highly recommended for those who feast on the sonics of the grassroots prog-metal within the darker matter upon the vibe of Seventh Wonder, Evergrey, Sphere of Souls, Circus Maximus, & Zero Hour.
CLICK HERE to Read a Review of The Music That Will Heal The World
Added: August 22nd 2009
Reviewer: Tommy Hash www.ytsejam.com
Score:
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Tracklist
1. Projected
2. Back To Reality
3. What You Want
4. Take My Hand
5. Power To Kill
6. Understand
7. Fire
8. It’s Just Life
9. The Music That Will Heal The World
Line-up
Søren Adamsen (v)
Tommy Ermolli (g)
Daniele Liverani (k)
Alberto Rigoni (b)
Dario Ciccioni (d)
Review added
July 3, 2007 |
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TWINSPIRITS
The Music That Will Heal The World
© 2007 Lion Music (LMC210)
progressive metal
studio album
9 tracks - TT 70:02
release date: June 15, 2007
http://www.twinspirits.net |
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After three albums with Empty Tremor, another three with Genius (rock opera), two albums with Khymera and some solo stuff, Daniele Liverani presents the latest step in his career with the band Twinspirits (named after a character in the Genius rock opera?).
Liverani started his career as a guitarist, but ‘discovered’ the keyboards halfway the 90s. Playing alongside him in Twinspirits are his buddy Dario Ciccioni on drums, the (young but) talented Tommy Ermolli on guitars, Alberto Rigoni on bass and Søren Adamsen on vocals.
With Khymera, Liverani showed his AOR side, but his first love is progmetal and knowing this, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Twinspirits serves as another progmetal outlet for him and his four partners in crime. What makes this Twinspirits different from his other progmetal projects though, is the degree of accessibility. I don’t know if we have to take the title of Twinspirits’ debut album seriously, but “The Music That Will Heal The World” could certainly serve as an opening for people who have still to discover and explore the wonderful world of progressive rock & metal. The album counts only 9 tracks, but with a total playing time of over 70 minutes, all of them are rather elaborated pieces of work with enough tension to keep your interest from the beginning notes of “Projected” to the (excellent) closing title track. I haven’t heard from singer Søren Adamsen before, but with his raw and powerful voice, he surely is a find. Just like Awake (see elsewhere), this Twinspirits is an excellent addition to Lion Music’s roster of acts. Recommended to anyone who likes a perfect mix of melodic and progressive rock/metal! (CL) www.rockreport.be
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Twinspirits – The Music That Will Heal the World
2007 Lion Music
You might think that a band led by keyboard maestro Daniele Liverani would be filled with thick lush soundscapes and highly sophisticated neo-classical overtones, but thankfully Twinspirits’ debut album The Music That Will Heal the World avoids all that and brings the all so rockin ‘grassroots’ approach to progressive metal up front to the ears.
Rummaged through with keyboards, ripping guitars, solos, & the powerful rhythmic punch, The Music That Will Heal the World invokes the sound of Vox Tempus, Riot, and Stride where you have the classic Images and Words/Rage for Order vibe mixed with straight forward metal and hard rock gusto alongside tinges of AOR within the songwriting sphere. And it’s the diversity that remains the focus contained by the songwriting; the tunes themselves have their own identity. Opening up with “Projected,” it’s an overture of sorts that leads into the much more ‘to-the-point’ rockin’ “Back to Reality,” yet the transition between the two cuts is prefect. Other tracks like the Rainbow (Rising) reminiscent “Take My Hand” & classic rock invoked “Fire” badger the record’s metallic soul while the ballad “What You Want” and the eased back emotive “It’s Just Life” is the sophistical sentiment side to this platter.
The Music That Will Heal the World marks another great record in the world of stripped-down progressive metal (I know that’s an oxymoron term, but…), letting the songs do the talking instead of massive arrangements. There are plenty of catchy hooks and memorable riffs from both the six strings and the ivories to be had on this album, so those who seek the high melodic stance in the world of thinking man’s metal dare not miss out on this one.
Added: June 25th 2007
Reviewer: Tommy Hash www.ytsejam.com
Score:
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Twinspirits - The Music That Will Heal The World
Twinspirits is the latest collaboration from keyboardist/guitarist/composer - Daniele Liverani, who in the progmetal circles gained some notoriety with his involvement with Empty Tremor as the band's keyboardist, and also a few solo cds, as well as his own brainchild, a trilogy, three episode rock/metal opera called Genius, where he collaborated with many other singers and musicians to create this elaborate collection of music.
Twinspirits has Liverani back in the keyboard seat, along with some of Italy's upstart musical talent, in an effort to create a progressive metal band that employs both high energy music, with stand out musicianship, something Liverani has be involved with for quite a while now. I am finding that the music on this cd actually seems to be yet another extension of what I have heard on the last Empty Tremor cd - The Alien Inside, and some of the Genius material, though this does remain a separate thing altogether. But after being familiar with most of Liverani's output, I have come to know his writing style, which always pushes the limits of musical progression, yet one thing seems to penetrate each of his musical pursuits, and it's the way the vocals are integrated to the music, I am only guessing, but he must be writing the lyrical themes and melodies as well as the music itself, as they always seem to have the same kind of feel on all of his musical output.
So after giving this cd multiple listens, I found it hard to differentiate this material from his other efforts for this same reason, other than the fact that this guitarist Tommy Ermoli leaves his own trademark on Twinspirits music, the rest gives me the same eerie feeling I got from Liverani's other bands. The music is always fantastically written, yet the vocal melodies seem to not fit quite as well, perhaps the singer should write the vocal lines to allow for his personal expressions to shine through, as I really get the impression that the way Liverani composes melodies for lyrics makes too many of the singers he is involved with sound the same. It's never bad, just not nearly as expressive and 'hooky' as it could be. I always love the music he writes, and he does allow a lot of room for the musicians to shine, something I wish other so called 'progmetal' bands would do.
Well Twinspirits comes advertised as progressive metal, and it is just that, the ingredients are all there, and it is apparent that this is an impressive line-up of musicians, with a lot of instrumental music on this effort, while my critical comments are merely personal feelings, I do in fact like this bands' potential, there is a lot of really nice things happening on this cd, and with more attention to detail this band could quite easily be top tier, it just a matter of putting both the great technical elements of the music and a more detailed and refined melodic approach to the melodies of the lyrical content. I have no doubt that this band has this potential, very talented group of musicians, and the singer seems to be quite good as well. Yet when people are talking about the very best progmetal bands, you can always count on the fact that great musicians are a given, but what they are doing with the vocals are equally important, bands like Symphony X, Dream Theater, Andromeda, Dreamscape and more recent groups like Circus Maximus, Pagan's MInd, Mind's Eye, or Venturia for examples have put it all together, raising the standards for the new generations of progmetal bands to strive for. Twinspirits is nearly there, and certainly from a straight musical approach, they are as good as it gets.
MJ Brady ProGGnosis
Rating:
8.0 |
Twinspirits - The Music That Will Heal The World
15 June 2007
01. Projected
02. Back To Reality
03. What You Want
04. Take My Hand
05. Power To Kill
06. Understand
07. Fire
08. It's Just Life
09. The Music That Will Heal The World
All songs written and composed by Daniele Liverani
Produced by Daniele Liverani
Additional backing vocals by Irene Ermolli
Mixed and mastered at Fear Studios, Alfonsine, Italy by Simone Mularoni and Gabriele Ravaglia
Executive Producer Lars Eric Mattsson
Cover and Artwork by Dario Ciccioni
Original cover photo by Sare Green
Twinspirits are a young new progressive band hailing from Italy and are full of ambition, about to present the world with their first studio album ambitiously titled "The Music That Will Heal The World". We have here exactly 70 minutes of diverse, mature, clean, melodic music that is indeed quite calming and pleasant to listen to in some kind of quite charming way. The first time I listened to this album throughout was while I was out by myself walking down some grass at the side of a river in the sun and I can't think of many better musical accompaniments I could have taken with me to enhance such a therapeutic session.
The album introduces itself with a four minute leading into the first two songs of the album "Back To Reality" and "What You Want" that are not exactly the fastest songs I have heard but this doesn't take anything way from the music as both the songs emit integrity and nicely help the album along to my favourite cluster of songs on the album. "Take My Hand" has a beautiful, relaxing guitar line to it and then "Power To Kill" shoots in being the most aggressive track on the album. We have a young guitar player here, at just nineteen years old Tommy Ermolli shows off some really great talents with his clean guitar playing sounding very mature indeed. Also the singer we have here is Danish man Søren Adamsen that at times doesn't sound incredibly dissimilar to Andre Matos, providing a good clear front to the band.
The songs here are long, we have two ten-plus minute tracks and nearly all the others are around the seven minute mark - but unlike some albums I have heard recently I don't cringe when I see the next track lasts over twelve minutes because although some bands long songs do drag on and get boring - Twinspirits keep the songs nice to listen to throughout and prevent them from becoming boring. This would be quite a nice album to aid someone just getting into progressive music, as the material here is quite accessible - it isn't mind-boggling and over-technical or over-progressive, but perfectly suited for a nice, pleasant listen.
This is somewhat of a calm, album that flows very well and delivers the good with each song but maybe if people come into this looking and expecting from the wrong perspective they may find themselves a little disappointed. This is a long album so anyone expecting some magnificent crescendo or apex may be let down as the album is a steady album that doesn't go out of its way to try and be the most glorious thing you have ever heard.
There are plenty more good points about this album then bad and I don't know about healing the world, but this is a very pleasant album for those calm, sunny afternoons and I would recommend it to people who are looking for this sort of music.
www.metalstorm.ee |
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