New Album Unobtainium By The Cyberiam

Something new, and something a bit heavier. The Cyberiam is a rock band from Chicago. You can find out more here:

https://thecyberiam.com/home

First track has long spoken segments on it and it's a little jarring to my ears. The sung chorus is melodic but harmonically it's a little dull, relying on the same chugging chords over and over again. There's not really a lot to this song, I think.

The second track has a spoken intro, and choosing a speech from the late Queen Elizabeth II is somewhat bizarre. It's a speech about the Commonwealth. Is it ironic? Why was it chosen? Is it just a way of referring to the queen - but for what reason? I'm baffled as to what this song is for. No singing on this track, so we're two tracks in and it's been mainly instrumental.

Track 3 is an actual song, you know, with words and stuff, and it's the best so far. There's nothing outstandingly different harmonically, we're in fairly standard prog territory. It's well done, well played and well sung. But this kind of thing has been done to death. Maybe I need to go away and listen to some Taylor Swift and come back later. No. No-one needs to do that.

Track 4 has a beautiful vocal/choir synth sound with some lovely lead guitar over the top. Again, harmonically it doesn't do anything particularly interesting, but it sounds great. I was sitting here thinking 'please don't go into a chuggy guitar bit' and it didn't. It went into a rhythmically very interesting version of the intro chords and then some vocals. The album's definitely getting better.

The lyrics to track 4, Double X are either distinctly misogynistic or ironically observant. They're ambiguous I think, and that's a good thing!

Track 5, Ghost In The Machine, sounds like it could be a Robbie Williams song, except that it's not being sung by Robbie Williams. Surely we did away with this kind of chord progression in the seventies? Having said that, I'd be the first to be lauding this to the skies if Robbie Williams released it. It's all about expectations isn't it.

Here's a quote from their website. "With the songs' wide ranging lengths and styles, this album will cater to every prog listener." Not true as far as I can hear. The songs are four and a half to seven and a half minutes long, so why pick this out? And stylistically they are all similar. To be fair, perhaps the use of prog here is 'prog metal' rather than progressive rock? I'm not sure. I can't recommend this album.

Reasons to listen:

  • You're looking for a reasonably straightforward heavy prog metal album
Reasons not to listen:
  • You prefer your prog to be, well, just a bit more interesting

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