If ever there was a time to stop doing track-by-track album reviews it would be now, with the album New World by Dave Kerzner. The Deluxe Edition of this album, as I have right here contains 23 tracks, with a total running time of over 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Now at first, some might wonder what Dave Kerzner is (a few less after the good review this album received over the past 6 month, but still). Dave has been involved in music since he was quite young, but didn’t get around to getting a record deal when he wanted to start a career in music. [acfw id=2]

Instead, he founded Sonic Reality, the renowned company that creates MIDI samples from original instruments, so that they can be used in synthesizers. Doing this helped him to not only make a living, but also create a huge network of artists, some recording samples others using them. This, and being a more than decent keyboard player himself, caused him to be able to work with people rating from Beyonce to Neil Peart and from Madonna to Jon Anderson.

This huge network of artists plays a role on his debut solo album New World as well. Besides drummer Nick D’Virgilio and guitar/bass player Fernando Perdomo, with home Kerzner forms the core band for the album, 18 other musicians play their parts on different tracks. They all seem to have a relation with bands that have influenced Kerzner over time: Pink Floyd, Genesis, Spock’s Beard, Yes, … As such, expect to find names like Lorelei and Durga McBroom, Billy Sherwood, but als Keith Emerson on the guest list.

The music on the album is a similar mix of influences, taking the listener from a Pink Floyd/David Gilmour opening to Genesis land and on to Yes oceans. At some point, I even heard hints of Rush mixed with Great Gig In The Sky singing by one of the McBroom sisters. It’s never a straight copy, but a modernised use of sounds and styles, that somehow works out really well. It’s not renewing per se, but certainly an eclectic mix of good things if ever there was one, and musically executed without flaws.

Production wise, the mix does appeal to my ears, although the bass is often a bit hidden underneath the keyboards. These same keyboards also seem to be the cause of some of the tracks being a tad too loud, forcing me to turn down the volume. Overall, it works fine at slightly lower volume.

This album rocks and is a musical journey for those willing to spend 2.5 hours listening intently. For the less patient once, I’d recommend getting the regular, 78 minute edition instead.

Rating

This is the first album that is being subject to a rating on this site (although I will go into the back catalog of reviews soon to rate those as well). The way I rate is not by giving a single score, but rather focusing on a few different areas. That will be explained later this week in a separate blog post.

A few months ago, I got sent an album by Serbian band Alogia, called Elegia Balcanica. I hadn’t heard of the band before, and was surprised to learn that their guitarist Srdjan Brankovic is behind Expedition Delta, a musical project that involves or has involved quite a few renowned musicians, like Erik Norlander (Rocket Scientists), Rene Merkelbach (Ayreon) and Gary Wehrkamp (Shadow Gallery) that found a place in my music collection ages ago.

In Alogia, Srdjan plays together with his brother Miroslav (guitar), Vladimir Ranisavljevic (bass), Srdjan Golubica (drums), and vocalist Nikola Mijic. [acfw id=2]

Keyboards and synths are played by Vladimir Djedovic, who unfortunately had to leave the band after recording the album to pursue other activities.

These six musicians delivered an album with powerful metal that shows both great musicianship and a couple of very clear influences.  Sometimes there’s a hint of early ’90s progressive metal, then power metal, and always two guitars and a keyboard ready to add some fast, whirling or mixed melodies over the metronomic rhythm guitar and drums. The high pitched vocals are well executed, although the Serbian lyrics may be a bit of a hurdle for an international audience.

On the album, this leads to a mixed variety of tracks. On tracks like Almagest, Callis Ad Astra and Galija we find rhythmic riffing that reminds of early 80s prog metal (Dream Theater) mixed with late 80s melodic keyboards and guitars (Halloween, Gamma Ray). In other places, the prog metal element disappears in favour of power metal, which is the case on Vreme je and the title track Elegia Balcanica.

Of a completely different nature are the tracks Us Tisini, which is slower and more keyboard heavy than the rest of the album and Intentionally Blind, a thrash metal bordering track. The latter is a worthy tribute to Death founder Chuck Shuldiner, who died of cancer in 2001.

Production wise, the album could have benefited from a slightly lighter mix. The bass is hard to be found, because the low end is dominated by drums, keyboard and rhtyhm guitar, and the drums sound a bit ‘woody’ in places.

Overall, this is a well executed power metal album, by a capable band, but with room for improvement. Given that this is the bands fourth album, and especially the previous two received good reviews, there is more to check out than just this one for who’s really interested.