No Geography is a different beast compared to the Chemical Brothers of the last few years, reverting back to sounds of old to tell a sonic story that borders on the dramatic (particularly when it comes to Aurora’s contribution). 2015’s Born In The Echoes had some brilliant hooks provided by plenty of featured artists to really hammer home the relevancy side of things, but on this year’s No Geography they’ve kept the pool of collaborators small, leaning on Norwegian pop newcomer Aurora and sampless to help fully complete the project. The fact that The Chemical Brothers have maintained relevancy and interests all over the world for close to three decades is no mean feat, especially in a genre as quick to evolve as EDM. įor fans of: Opeth, Strapping Young Lad, Steve Vai
It certainly won’t be for everyone, but progressive music fans can relish in the fact that Townsend remains the top player in a genre that desperately needs a sense of fun and exuberant exploration like this. And all that is pretty much par for the course at this point it might be strange to insinuate that Empath isn’t exactly breaking new ground, but for an artist like Townsend who’s trodden so much musical ground in the past, there’s a limit at how much he can do, and Empath seems to be crossing that boundary with an impressive sense of grace.
It can become a bit much to take in sometimes, like when trying to get through Singularity’s twenty-three minutes in a single sitting, but the constant stream of twists and shifts make this a thoroughly fascinating experience to dive into, particularly fronted by Townsend with the sort of vocal power and charisma that most frontmen could never even imagine mustering. And sure enough, this is the typical kitchen-sink type of album, where the gentle ambience of Castaway soon blows over for towering symphonic metal on Spirits Will Collide, pounding dance-rock on Evermore, operatic bombast on Why? and quite literally everything else peppered across of runtime that considerably breaks the hour mark. It was never like Empath was going to be any different either, given comparisons that have already been made to Disney soundtracks and a list of guest musicians spanning from Steve Vai to Chad Kroeger. It’s really no wonder that Devin Townsend has become one of the most revered figures in progressive music, given his gleeful sensibilities of experimenting with anything and everything musical that have fully smashed the veneer of too-serious prog for a long while now. Even if the aim wasn’t really to pick up new fans as much as feed the existing ones something a bit more direct, the fact that could easily happen is enough to deem Distance Over Time a success overall. Really, this doesn’t feel as much like a traditional Dream Theater album as it does a soft reboot of sorts, moving towards something much easier to swallow without sanding back too much of what has always made this band distinct, and in the way that scope and lush, elegant production can still find a way to give prog in this vein its poise, it’s fair to say they’ve done a damn solid job. That’s not to say they’ve done away with that completely as the easy ebb back to classical influences on Out Of Reach and the spasmodic shifts of Pale Blue Dot show, but there’s a heft to Untethered Angel and Paralyzed that connects with little hesitation, and Barstool Warrior sees one of their most convincing syntheses of melody and technicality in absolute ages. Quite what’s spurred this on is a mystery, but given that this is probably one of Dream Theater’s most accessible albums to date – as well as doubling down on solid songs rather than compositions – really does speak volumes.
That’s why Distance Over Time comes across as such a curveball, not only in paring everything back to under an hour but also embracing tones of djent and tech-metal that fall much more in line with their style’s most contemporary pivots. For all the justifiable flak that Dream Theater can be given for typifying the attitude of progressive metal placing a sense of impermeable self-importance over everything else, it’s given them results up to now, even if said results are multi-hour opuses that no one but the must ardent of devotees would even attempt to touch.
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