Inner Odyssey is a rather young Canadian band from Québec. In 2011 they released their debut album Have A Seat. This album was professionally recorded by Vincent Leboeuf Gadreau (guitars, vocals), Simon Gourdeau (bass), Pier-Luc Garand Dion (vocals), Mathieu Chamberland (keyboards) and Étienne Doyon (drums, vocals). Have A Seat is a typical transition album building a bridge between metal and progressive rock music. Therefore you might label the band as a prog metal band consisting of five very talented musicians who excellently combine both musical styles. The metal parts are mostly played by the aggressive guitars, but also the vocals sometimes resemble this type of music. A good example of their metal influences can be heard on Light Years Away: Part III (Distant Illusion). This piece is strongly reminiscent of Metallica in full glory. Even the singing sounds like their lead singer James Hetfield. However, Inner Odyssey also easily succeeds in including many progressive rock elements in this song. This characterizes one of the strongest assets in the music: alternating from aggressive metal parts to beautiful emotional progressive rock parts. That also applies to the vocals. Sometimes you hear aggressive singing in the vein of James Hetfield; at other times you can enjoy the sweetest vocal parts ever resembling for example George Michael on the albums he made with Wham! The guitarist also knows how to rock both the hard and the melodic way and sometimes even in the finest tradition of a Pink Floyd guitar solo. They often sound like bands as Dream Theater, Symphony X and Porcupine Tree. The keyboard player gets a lot of room to play his solos as well. I think he's at his best when he performs a strong keyboard intro like the ones on Light Years Away: Part I (Tides Of Fate), Sinking (The Journey Of Sin Part I) and Part Of Her. The latter song shows that he might have been classically trained because of the fabulous classical oriented piano parts which he shows more often on the album. It wasn't easy this time to pick out a favourite track since all of the nine tracks contain the same high level of musicianship. Every minute of this captivating album is worthwhile listening to! People who like a mixture of modern metal with strong emotional tones both from old school and modern progressive rock like Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Symphony X, Porcupine Tree, Metallica and Riverside, got a bull's eye with Have A Seat, the debut album of the Canadian band Inner Odyssey. **** Henri Strik (edited by Peter Willemsen) Where to buy? |
