Artist: Tangent Plane
Title: Project Elimni
Genre: Progressive / Heavy Metal
Release Date: 25th March 2011
Label: Massacre Records
Album Review
Progressive metal heads, TANGENT PLANE, have unleashed their second album, ‘Project Elimni’, and it trumps their debut. For those who hoped to see these guys go the more epic route, they got their wish. ‘Project’ is epic with some pretty decent guitar melodies, piano/ keyboard moments and overall that uplifting feeling that heavy metal gave listeners while hearing it. Tracks like ‘One Month In Real Time’ is heavily symphonic with a backing choir and just a frantic tone to the guitars along with the keyboards which also seem like they have a ‘sci-fi’ tone to them near the end. Others such as ‘Deadborn’ trudge along in a more dramatic, symphonic fashion where the backing choirs are more prevalent, switching from uplifting to depressing music. ‘One Moment…’ has some pretty psychedelic keyboards to begin with and then launches into a guitar solo which makes for a very hectic and wild track with the vocalist seeming like he has a split personality, much like how a song from ARCTURUS would feel. It is very progressive and wild at the same time but doesn’t feel too random or unnerving. The title track is the giant 20 minute epic for the band, and a real step in progressive metal’s direction to try and live up to the storytelling power of DREAM THEATER. Of course, this song doesn’t really do that kind of justice, but it is still an enticing attempt to hear TANGENT PLANE just power through without being too repetitive, although their music is mostly guitar and riff based without much variation overall save for when the keyboards switch from sounding like ambient instruments to a full on piano.
On the downside, the vocals are what make or break this band, as most vocalists do. With TANGENT PLANE, the vocalist tends to sound a bit too wavering, like VINTERSORG sometimes, but he doesn’t use his voice to the right effect for the music. Instead of being smooth and energetic, it sounds like he’s singing while driving over train tracks. It throws his pitch off. On the first track, his voice suddenly changes to a deeper, almost robotic tone near the end which suits him well- think of it in the way that Aaron from MY DYING BRIDE tends to go on about his wailing and then suddenly will change into this dark, spoken word prophet of doom and listeners will go “Damn, that’s awesome…” It’s the same effect here. Sadly, it isn’t used enough. That being said, his voice isn’t terrible, but sometimes it just seems like he is trying too hard to get into the music and it makes everything seem cheesier than it needs to be. Fans who want to get into ‘Project Elimni’ will most likely want to do it for the music, rather than the voice, but at the same time with each going hand in hand, it makes it difficult to separate the two during the listening experience altogether.
Tracklist
1. One Month In Real-Time 7:44
2. One With The Lies 5:23
3. Ice Age 7:03
4. Borrow Me Your Dullness 9:39
5. Do You Live 4:46
6. Deadborn 9:46
7. One Moment And The Murder After 9:23
8. Project Elimi 22:17
Line-up
Jan Michaelis - Vocals
Piero Pellegrino - Guitars
Kostas Kontos - Bass
Ralph Swan Krieger - Keyboards
Dennis Hoffmann - Drums
Website
http://www.myspace.com/tangentplane
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 5
Total: 6 / 10
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