| 3.5 great |
| Ana Kefr The Burial Tree (II) |
| Bloodbath Unblessing the Purity |
| Buckethead Pepper's Ghost |
| Buckethead Island of Lost Minds |
| Buckethead Untitled [Happy Holidays From Buckethead] |
| Buckethead Left Hanging |
| Buckethead Worms for the Garden |
| Circles Infinitas |
| Cloudkicker Beacons |
| Cloudkicker Fade |
| David Maxim Micic Bilo 3.0 |
| Exivious Exivious |
| Gojira L'Enfant Sauvage |
| Intervals A Voice Within |
A great deal of skepticism arose when Intervals announced that they added a vocalist, and it
turns out it was warranted. Fans of instrumental Intervals will unfortunately be
disappointed with this outing. While Mike Semesky is a gifted and very melodic singer,
Intervals made the choice of writing their songs around his vocals. Gone are the guitar-
driven melodies and complex song structures that made In Time so great; Aaron Marshall's
virtuosic soloing, which flourished on In Time, now makes only sparse appearances between
verses. Rather than use Mike's voice to add another dimension of complexity, Intervals
simplified their songwriting to accommodate the new addition.
Don't get me wrong: for what it is, A Voice Within is a stellar progressive rock/pop album,
with excellent vocals and melodies. But it is entirely different from what made Intervals
famous. While some diehard fans still insist on an instrumental release of A Voice Within,
such a release would yield only vapid backing tracks; a shell of what Intervals once was.
"Breathe" is the only track reminiscent of old Intervals, but while breathtakingly beautiful
it only clocks in at a mere two minutes. Overall, A Voice Within is over-simplified and
quite generic, but will certainly appeal to a wider audience. |
| Joe Satriani Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards |
| Meridian Meridian |
| Omnium Gatherum Beyond |
| Plini Sweet Nothings |
| Saturnus Saturn in Ascension |
| Shawn Lane The Tri-Tone Fascination |
| Slice the Cake Other Slices |
| The Algorithm Polymorphic Code |
| The Algorithm Octopus4 |
| Threat Signal Under Reprisal |
| Steven McKnight's emotive solos are definitely the highlight of this album. It's a shame that he left. |
| Twelve Foot Ninja Silent Machine |
| Wretched (USA-NC) The Exodus of Autonomy |
| I don't dig the vocalist, but if the whole album was like the instrumental title track this would be a 4-4.5 |
