Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Office Of Strategic Influence Is Free

This is the second album for the project of Kevin Moore (ex Dream Theater, Chroma Key), Jim Mattheos (Fates Warning), Joey Vera (Fates Warning) and Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater). If you are familiar with the members, you know the worth of the band. You may not know the origin of their name which refers to a subdivision of the USA department of defense which focused on propaganda. This short article on wikipedia has all the details. About the album itself, I will post my review which should appear soon on Behind the Veil webzine.
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The supergroup of O.S.I. follows up their succesful debut with "Free". It becomes clear that the person who is in charge is Kevin Moore (keyboards, vocals), as the mood of the album is a lot like Moore's Chroma Key project. I still wish they had brought Daniel Gildenlow (Pain Of Salvation) as was originally planned, since I find Moore's voice somewhat tiring. Of course, the man remains a most inspired song writer and keyboardist. Things go a bit more to the electronic and drum'n'bass side this time. Don't be alarmed though, this remains a metal album as Mattheos offers some quite heavy riffs. Mike Portnoy finds a chance to prove his versatility as he adapts to quite a different style of playing. "Free" is an album for demanding listeners and probably there's nothing like it in the whole scene. With a vocalist like Gildenlow however, it would be a masterpiece.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing such wonderful and interesting article about Strategic Influence.