Album review: SWEET OBLIVION (feat Geoff Tate) – Relentless

Frontiers Music [Release date 09.03.21]

Another Italian job. The Sweet Oblivion (feat Geoff Tate) debut was co-written by Tate and DGM guitarist/producer, Simone Mularoni. Relentless is the follow up, and it’s been been co-written and produced by another multi-talented Italian musician, Aldo Lonobile, who founded the band, Secret Sphere.

As genre fans well know, the ambition that generated the futuristic, innovative Prog Rock of Queensryche’s landmark album, Operation Mindcrime, has been inherited by a score of Metal bands, mainly European, who regularly stretch their material into ever more complex concepts and soundscapes. Effectively, Queensryche’s past is no longer groundbreaking.

So, remarkably, what Lonobile has done here is remodel a classic sound for a new era, expertly salvaging elements of the original Queensryche, adding songwriting chops of the highest calibre.

The first single, ‘Strong Pressure’, understandably, is Sweet Oblivion at its most accessible. There are no histrionics, no grand gestures. Lenoble’s gilded hybrid of hard rock and heavy metal allows Tate’s theatrical, expressive delivery take centre stage.

‘Another Change’ and ‘Wake Up Call’ are two of the album’s real standouts, with just enough grit in their symphonic metal mix to give them contemporary relevance. Tate’s vocals still have an incredible tone, moving the delivery from light to shade and back in the space of one line. He’s acting the part in these songs, as well as singing it, and like great Hollywood movies, the tracks are slick, smart and well plotted.

Arguably, Lonoble’s expertise as a producer and arranger has never been better employed. Rather than dilute ‘Once Again, One Sin’s drama, his restrained, spine tingling orchestration underlines it. And more so perhaps with another standout track, ‘Anybody Out There’. Where Tate’s theatrical vocal performance threatens to slip over the top into melodrama, Lonoble’s finely grained arrangement anchors it to solid ground.

Elsewhere, ‘Fly Angel Fly’, hard rock with a metalised sheen, is tailor made for Tate’s operatic delivery, and fragile ballad, ‘I’ll Be The One’ recalls Queensryche’s high quality, ”mainstream” material on Empire and Promised Land. No bad thing. ***1/2

Review by Brian McGowan

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THE RASMUS Rest In Pieces (Better Noise Music)
THE PLAGUE What Else Can I Do (FiXT)
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