Customer Reviews

Unfolded Like Staircase

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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Multi-instrumentalist Matthew Parmenter takes his bandmates along on a dark and sinister journey to into the dream of limbo on a pair of crutches just before the storm takes them to Eden. Or so the song titles tell... This is a dark album, but it never drags or grows boring. It is worthy of many repeated listenings and, for me, a great companion on a long bike ride. Instrumentally challenging and flowing. From the opening Kashmir meets Lark's Tongues riff, you are thrust into the tides of Parmenter's mind.

Parmenter harnesses his new infatuation with Peter Hammill and VDGG and melds it with his Genesis fixation and King Crimson influences and creates a powerful visionary album. Dreams and nightmares abound, but I never felt a depression from the music, rather I feel exhilarated and bouyant, like waking from a running dream, when you feel ready for battle and toss the blankets while searching for the demon's face.

Canto IV, with Dantesque imagery and a certain hopefulness in the face of darkness in lyrics like, "What I believe is emptiness" followed by "and kindness in our hearts." Being raised in the catholic religion, I understand his vision of what Limbo would be like, ""how can there possibly be, no room up there for me." I get shivers remembering the sobering lessons of my youth, with Pink Floyd like characters spewing forth hell and damnation. Being from Detroit, as I am, Parmenter may have had similar experiences as a child.

Into the Dream paints another grim picture, "why chase a rainbow? Best to give in," and "If the rapist must break free, from the deepest part of me, when judgment chains our darkest side, denials breeds a genocide." Can you get more dark and sinister? Yet Matthew ends the final movement with the return to the sea of the turtle, "I am free." Maybe a metaphor for death or an escape to heaven? Continuing on the religious lyric train, in "Before the Storm," Parmenter again speaks of Eden and lost innocence and the journey to return.

Add some Disciplline to your prog collection. Find Astray by Matthew Parmenter as well.

Ok, I admit it, I'm a sucker for long songs. With 4 songs in 64min, you get your money's worth here. However long songs alone do not always mean there's coherent songwriting. Thankfully the music presented here is utterly fantastic. The songs are epic for more reasons than just their track times. Each song evokes an emotional trip through a dark and somewhat depressing realm with little to be found as uplifting. At times it reminds me of older Genesis and King Crimson material; but at the same time it sounds nothing like either of them. I wouldn't say the music is as intricate or as complex as other symphonic prog luminariers. Instead the music is very true to the atmosphere and the instrumentation varies enough to never become tired or redundant. The vocals are at times quite sinister and tormented sounding. No growling or snarling, just darkly passionate in tone. The delivery of the music is just fantastic. I've hardly been able to pry myself away from this CD since I bought it a month ago. My only complaint is that the bass is mixed a bit too strong on this recording.

I'm heavily into metal and recently broadening my horizons more and more to various forms of rock, be it psyche rock or progressive rock, or what have you.

I listened to a snippet of this cd in a small but cool little store but the cd was reserved. I got a pretty good impression of it in the 1 minute I listened to "Crutches" so I ordered it on a whim. I have to say it's one of the best CD's I've bought in a while. Though it has only 5 tracks, all 5 are great, and I rather have it this way rather than 12 tracks on an album only 5 of which are good. The tracks are long but interesting. I don't find myself fastforwarding to, for example, minute 3 of a track because an intro is not good. I can listen to this album from start to finish over and over again.

This is simply one of the best progressive rock albums of the 90's. The band pulled out all the stops on this one to create a masterwork of music, lyrics, and performance that reveals all that is great about progressive rock. Although the album clocks in at close to an hour it only contains four lengthy tracks; "Canto IV (Limbo)", "Crutches", "Into The Dream" and "Before The Storm". In some hands long epics like these would become overblown and boring, but this never happens here. There is no sense of any of the tracks being long, just for the sake of being long, a trap many prog bands fall into. If you are into stong intelligent lyrics you can't get much better than Matthew Parmenter's emotive dark wordplay on this disc. The thought process that went into these compositions is simply stunning. The vocals are delivered with a sense of the dramatic that in lesser hands would come off as contrived, but here is an essential part of the delivery. The music is consistently great throughout with long instrumental passages that show off the band's chops and agility. John Preston Bouda's guitar shines throughout. He has a very distinctive style that is as much a part of the success of this album as Parmenter's keys and vocals. The four tracks are all great. The opener "Limbo" has always been one of my favorites with the main character of the song residing in the Catholic concept of limbo after death. The chilling main narrative line "how can there possibly be, no more room up there for me" paints a very clear picture of the character and the infinite doom sentenced upon him. Another favorite of mine "Crutches" follows with its theme of depressive self examination. The next track "Into The Dream" is the longest on the album, clocking in at over 20 minutes, and is considered by many to be the band's masterwork. Indeed this sprawling epic is the centerpiece of the album and is just about as fine as progressive rock gets. The last track "Into The Dream" is another long one divided into 3 parts. For me it is the weakest track on the disc, but is still a great listen. Overall I honestly think that this is one of the great progressive rock albums of all time. This is not easy listening stuff, and for some may take multiple listens to really absorb all that is represented here. With that in mind the album should be a rewarding addition to any prog rock collection.

It's a shame this Prog-Rock band didn't record more music. All tracks are cohesive and meaningful - Excellent CD!

So he sounds like Peter Hammil and the ghost of VDGG is all over it, but this is a dam great album,much, much better than the other album (which had two awful pop songs totally out of place and thankfully short) that ruined the mood (still worth having though)and i regard as something of a potential classic of the current prog era. Matthew Parameter's lyrics are very dark and he delivers them in a scowling way the closest is Hammil's interpetations on the VDGG 'h to he' but like the Swedish band Anekdoten who are dismissed as King Crimson clones (and are given a name check on the inner sleeve for turning Matthew on to VDGG!) this isn't a clone band. There is nothing wrong in wearing your influences on your sleeve. Discipline are slightly more rockier and at times even more complex. The biggest compliment i can give them is that once i looked on twenty minute tracks with a feeling of dread (thank you 'topographic oceans' and 'relayer') but with the epics on this they are consistently inventive and intresting with a sense of melody a lot of 70's dinosaurs were sadly lacking ('works volume 1' and 'love beach' anyone?) I can't praise this highly enough and his solo album is another classic in the making.

I'd never heard of these guys until I was wondering around the 'less than $4' section of Amazon's MP3 downloads. Prog-rock is something of an acquired taste but if you want a very good band to listen to that doesn't ever sound like they are making a song just to fill space then this is an album for you. And the producer was smart enough to mix the instruments at a level a bit lower than the vocals so you can actually hear the words without straining.