Review Tangent Plane - Project Elimi 2011

Fx(x0,y0,z0)(x-x0)+Fy(x0,y0,z0)(y-y0)+Fz(x0,y0,z0)(z-z0)=0, now what is all this you might ask yourself and maybe you should if you do not know what it is. It has to do with mathematics and particularly the one revolving around curves in a graph, it is the formula for calculating the Tangent Plane which of course need some derivations and such when the numbers come into play but that is how their name look in its mathematical form. For me such names and the look of the cover of the band’s artwork of this Project Elimi which might be in lyrical theme be referring to the Elymians an ancient italian people that lived in the western part of Sicily but it maybe something completely different though, one thing is for certain and that is that it is not referring to the mathematics of the tangent plane.

I was hoping for some mathematical logic in the simplicity of the formula this review begin with when it came to the musical but that was something Tangent Plane did not want to give me, instead they hand over music that is very progressive with complex song structures with endless changes in tact and tone as well as tempo even though mostly the tempo is quite low through the songs but it changes quite a lot. It is music that requires you to listen and take in all those nuances and sounds the band is offering.

The production paint a soundscape with a smooth and slightly futuristic sound that is one of the main plus points of this album, the soundscape is really good and it suits the music well enough. There are also elements in the music, song parts that are really great but the thing is that there is no song on the entire album that I like from the beginning to the end, there are only parts of songs I like. I might also add that this album has eight songs and is 76 minutes long which in any term is way too long.

The main problem of this album is that in spite of their band name the band has forgotten that we as humans need structure to our thing and structure and cold logic as well as simplicity is found in the mathematics and maybe the band should have looked more into sticking to patterns and formulas that is actually suited in stead of copy-pasting different parts into songs that lasts for around ten minutes, for me it does not work and I’d much rather sit in silence working on counting the tangent plane or maybe solving the standard formula in astronomy which is as complex and weird as this band. In stead of realising that it might be wrong when things are found that contradict the formula, they keep adding dark stuff like first it was dark matter, then dark energy, dark flow might be on its way next, it seems like the dark things that are plentiful everywhere is messing up their formula and according to the current applications there is as much dark matter as regular matter around us so you do have stuck to you your body weight in dark matter, no wonder you are unfit carrying all that extra weight you didn’t know of.

No matter, if you think my review is a bit odd, it is formed in a manner so that it can reflect how the record is, it is not coherent more than loosely and it has all this shifts in content and tonality just so you might get a better understanding of Project Elimi. Maybe they were actually looking for the formula to make great progressive music but instead of acknowledging when they were wrong they just kept adding things to try and make it work.

The thing is that this band have this tendency of harsh change between parts of the songs and all in between they go down in tempo meaning that this album feel very strange musically as the song structures does not seem to fit together well. I do not think this making long songs with much change all the way through is good progressive metal or rock. I think Dream Theater is a fine example of how to do it, they always keep this line and main formula in their song, just adding some calculations in some parts to spice it all up but it always confine to the mathematical rules of the song, which is something this band should learn since they have the melodies and production sorted, it is just how to built their songs that is a complete failure at the moment.

I think they ought to take a step back and look over their formula again because somewhere along the line they have miscalculated something which makes their music work less well than it should have done. It actually feel like they try to make music that is supposed to be considered progressive and not tried to make music that is good music. I think there is a need to have as much heart as brain when making any kind of music, this is something the best band succeed with and something Tangent Plane have to learn.

Another thing that bother me with this album is the singer who does not carry the music and that is also something that is needed in this kind of music. Listen to James LaBrie of Dream Theater or Russel Allen of Symphony X to name a few and then you sort of know what I talk about.

6 CO2 + 6 H2O --> C6H12O6 + 6 O2

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Tangent Plane Project Elimi

Tangent Plane
Project Elimi