Review Summary: Disaccord might just be 2022’s of the best prog-rock albums that nobody is talking about.
I firstly want to apologize to you all because I have done this community a great disservice. I’ve been listening to this album since the inception of its debut and only now am I finally coming along to giving it the attention it deserves! The great length of time that I’ve sat on this review resembled an internal war of attrition between me and the
Mental Fracture that was “writer’s block”. This spawned a significant
Disaccord in my mind between an unrealistic vision of what this review should be and my desperate willingness to get started typing about it.
Oh, yes. There is an unfortunate duo of truths in this matter: the fact that this took over three months to get this grueling review finished and that this beautiful album at hand is about cognitive dissonance. Namely, the misalignment of a person’s actions with their beliefs, as well as the fallacious justifications one can make post hoc for their mental wrongdoings. Consequently, each of the songs lyrically illustrate varying instances of people dealing with psychological fractures, disassociations, and cognitive struggles. This has strong thematic ties to
Dream Theater’s famous
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence suite as well as my struggles with procrastination.
Not to mislead you with this association between
Disaccord and my own shortcomings; I whole-heartedly love this album, as much as any victim of Stockholm syndrome… no not really. But this has certainly grown on me as much as becoming one of my personal favorite albums of the year, even though this can be classified equally as progressive rock as progressive metal. It took the band several years to finish and one can infer by the quality of the end product that this was time well spent. There are no truly bad songs on the album as it emanates compositional opulence. The tracks are filled with so much melody which tends to work exceptionally well. Each has an abundance of great instrumental content interwoven by threads of progressive tempo shifts, time signature changes, and fluid transitions. In this manner,
Mental Fracture can be best compared to the likes of
Porcupine Tree. Both exist on the borderland of rock and metal, and demonstrate why each genre is valuable with rock’s wonderful vocal melodies and metal’s clever riffage.
When it comes to the vocal hooks and choruses on this album, they are done most effectively on the trio “Goodbye Forever”, “Hello”, and “Concrete Wall” where the emotion and catchiness of these songs are driven by the passion of Ori Mazuz’s voice. People have pointed out to me that he is not the most technically incredible singer, especially compared to some of the power metal vocalist virtuosos that exist in the underground scene. Nonetheless, there is a certain endearing sentimentality and charm to his performance which the band would be strongly disadvantaged without. Moreover, he makes proficient use of his more limited vocal range (truly, the size doesn’t matter as long as one knows how to use it). It sounds to me like Mazuz was aiming for the vocal styles both of the aforementioned Steven Wilson, and of modern prog metal vocalists like Ross Jennings and Einar Solberg. I would not say he succeeded in matching their raw skill, but in attempting to do so, he created something wholesome and unique.
This is produced reasonably well for an underground album, and I have never thought that the instruments sounded compressed or opaque. As far as the instrumental mix goes, it feels as though the band tried to experiment a bit by placing strong emphases which one will hear throughout the album. This is never done offensively but one can hear unexpected spikes in volume here and there. The overall clean production design helps in conveying the album’s deceptively bright and upbeat atmosphere.
When thinking about who this album might appeal to, it is clear that this is a work made by prog fans, for prog fans. Aside from all of the influences mentioned above, this has shades of post-
Heritage Opeth,
Tool,
Spock’s Beard, and an abundance of
Camel, especially in the synth work. Oh my goodness, the synths and keyboards on this album are absolutely phenomenal! I have really not heard much like this before, though I’m sure it’s out there in the deep prog-rock world. The keyboards range from soothing washes in the backdrop, to contemplative piano interludes, to straight-up loud, aggressive, and deep-fried tunes. These are spread generously across the length of the album, and they are always highlights amongst a family of high-class instrumental performances. The best example that showcases all of the instrumentalist’s strengths is easily the title track, “Disaccord” which is one of my favorite instrumental tracks of the year. The ending track “Hearts of Stone” has its share of peak moments as well and ties up the album nicely with a reprisal of the lush guitar lead from the intro track.
I do want to point out a couple of minor nitpicks with
Disaccord. The only song I wasn’t too fond of was “Clockwork”, mainly because I thought the main vocal melody got somewhat annoying after a while, but this might be a consequence of having it overplayed. Also on occasion, the band starts sounding a little too close to
Porcupine Tree for my liking and it would be nice for them not to lean on their influences so much.
These critiques are thankfully outliers in the album as its pros vastly outweigh its cons, and all-in-all, this is a fairly fresh breath for the genre. I’m happy I had the opportunity to listen to this album for a full three months before moving on to others because this brought me a lot of joy to listen to. This is not perfect by any means, but it shows that the band is capable of very impressive songwriting peaks that make me feel as though they have the potential to become one of the greats someday. It will just take time to see if the band will remain consistent with their strengths and grow from their weaknesses. I’m looking forward to what they incorporate in successive albums down the line.
Attribution: https://theprogressivesubway.com/2022/06/24/review-mental-fracture-disaccord/
