Review Summary: The latest project from Devon Graves of Psychotic Waltz fame puts out a varied, interesting, but not flawless album in The January Tree. The cover art owns, though.
Dead Soul Tribe is hardly a well-known band, which is strange for two reasons. First, they're signed to the redoubtable Inside Out label, which is home to such luminaries as Ayreon, Symphony X, Pain of Salvation, and pretty much every Dream Theater side project ever. Secondly, they're really quite good.
Dead Soul Tribe is the brainchild of songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and proto-genius Devon Graves. Yes, that's Devon, as in the meat substitute that comes in pink circles. Devon (hee, hee) takes care of vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, keyboards, and flute, while leaving drums to Adel Moustafa. How generous.
Dead Soul Tribe fall into the musical realm of "annoyingly unclassifiable", which seems to have become a genre of its own these days. They're far from the avant-garde prog of some of their labelmates, and they're definitely not metal - they lack the riffage, and Devon's voice is altogether far too pretty. The best way to describe the overall sound of Dead Soul Tribe would be, appropriately,
tribal rock. Moustafa's unique style of skinbashing gives an earthy, dirty feel, and Graves' guitar tone is messy and grainy rather than tight and gutbustin'. The music tends to swirl and dip in a vague attempt to go forward, but seeming like it just wants to stay where it is, thank you very much. The odd flute solo by Graves adds another tribal element, bringing to mind images of the high South American Andes - don't ask me how, that's just how it sounds to me.
The January Tree is an album that is hard to describe. Personally I've heard nothing that sounds even remotely like it. Devon tends to go for basic song structures for the most part, but is perfectly capable of mixing it up a bit,
Why? and
Just Like A Timepiece being cases in point. The former descends into a middle section that bears no resemblance to the first part of the song before launching into a decent guitar solo, and the latter is the most 'progressive' song on the album, clocking in at over 7 minutes and featuring a couple of flute solos and a big, epic end section.
With Devon Graves handling most of the instruments, there's no capacity for ego battles, and this shines through in the production. No instrument is superfluous; you can hear everything, even the bass, for the most part, and every instrument has a part to play. In places this makes for some sparse sounding pieces, like
The Love of Hate, which suffers a little from lack of thickness. It never really develops into anything, just chugging along at the same medium tempo which characterises most of the album.
But
The January Tree is far from monotonous, although most of the variety seems to be contained within the latter half of the album. The first six tracks all seem reasonably similar (standouts being
Why? and
The Coldest Days Of Winter) before
Wings of Faith opens up - fast, energetic and bouncy, with a riff that could very easily be metal if it were not for Graves' mid-heavy, grainy tone. To further mix things up, a choir sings a few notes here and there, filling out the higher registers that have been largely missing from the album so far.
Toy Rockets opens straight up with an immaculately performed flute solo, while
Waiting for the Answer is the most tribal song on the album, with bongos or kettle drums or something taking the part of more conventional skinbashing. Finally, Graves proves he's no slouch at the old ballad, with
Lady of Rain, a piano-driven, emotional piece, closing the album out. Compared to all this variety, the first half of
The January Tree seems to drag a little.
Overall, this is a solid album, and its refusal to be neatly classified can either be appealing or a nuisance, depending on your viewpoint. It's definitely a grower - I didn't like this much at all when I first bought it - so give it a few spins before giving up completely on it. At the moment, though,
The January Tree gets a
3.5/5 from me.
