Review Summary: The most by the numbers album you will likely find in the area of early 2000s style traditional progressive metal.
“There’s a reason they’ve been around for over 30 years and they barely have 3,000 monthly listeners.” – Nick from The Progressive Subway
Ouch. As harsh as it is for my fellow reviewer to say, the man has a point. This is one of the most average prog metal bands I may have ever heard up until this point. It is rare that a prog metal band fits the phrase “by the numbers” better than this band does. How perfectly they lie in the middle of the road is a feat of its own. This is not necessarily a bad thing to say: statistically, this would mean that Poverty’s No Crime is better than about half of all the prog metal bands out there. Right? However, when it comes to the prospect of curating their own sound, there seems to be staunchly no effort to do so. This band presents a milk-toast amalgamation of the traditional progressive metal style that was popular in the mid-90s to the mid-2000s. It is almost as if you took the abstract musical qualities that make up the 15 most popular bands of this area of progressive metal and morphed them into a homogenous blob of the genre; that’s what one should expect when listening to A Secret to Hide for the first time. However, for fans of that kind of sound, this is definitely not a bad album for someone looking for something new to hear.
If one is a fan of this kind of sound, which I am, this album will suffice for a few solid listens. The instrumental performances on the album all check out and fill in the boxes one would be looking for. The drumming, bass, and lead guitar provide some of the more memorable performances on the album. The drums are fairly rhythmic and complex, and the bass compliments the other guitars nicely. The album’s big redeeming quality comes in the occasional melodic and well-written guitar riffs and melodies.
We have some creative song structures with the 10+ minute song at the end of the album, just as one would expect. And I will say that the 30-year history that this band has played together shows as they have good audible synergy with one another. I will say that after a few listens, this band does grow on you a bit. However, in order for one to get to the point where they are really liking this band, they need that initial love for traditional prog metal. The combination of the melodic lead guitar, the electronic synths, the bass, and scratchy rhythm guitar makes for a mildly enjoyable experience. It is sad to say that the rhythm guitar can be pretty lifeless and forgettable for most of the album.
Right away, there is one very noticeable problem with Poverty’s No Crime: the singer is incredibly one-note all the time and gives a very repetitive lyrical approach that gets old real quick. There is just one vocal emotion throughout the whole album, and it is not even sung that well. To be fair, one could argue that this is not just a problem with this band, but ironically, is a problem with the whole scene entirely; where the older version of traditional progressive metal have technically skilled and creative instrumentalists but have a vocalist who does not sing very well. This is why we prog metal fans should be damn grateful for the stylistic shift in the late 2000s and prominent in the 2010s; where prog metal bands start really focusing on their vocalists delivering over the top, amazing performances. New traditional prog metal bands now have vocalists with such beautiful and impressive voices with ranges that are some of the best in all of metal. This is where the community is now. And there is much less of an interest in these old, dated sounding bands with mediocre vocalists.
Essentially, this is a good but not great album from a band that started in the mid-90s and musically stayed in the mid-90s. If you have been looking for a band with sounds of 90s and early 2000s prog metal revival, then this band might just be for you. There are many decent moments on the album but it will definitely be forgotten in the history of the genre.
https://theprogressivesubway.com/2021/05/25/review-povertys-no-crime-a-secret-to-hide/
