Headspace
All That You Fear is Gone

All that you fear is gone says Headspace, and wouldn’t that be great. One thing that I fear is masturbatory progressive albums that ends up not getting anywhere, I wonder if they can alleviate that fear. Their debut album a few years ago was strong and promised much; therefore it wasn’t without some expectations I took up listening to this album more than a month ago. It is said to be a more ambitious album that the debut, the cover doesn’t look either more ambitious or better than the first and the covers reflects the relation between Headspace’s two albums.

Musically this is progressive metal with some very melodic touches, some complex stuff and all things that makes a progressive album. Excellent sound, the production is absolutely top notch, not to mention the amazing vocals (as always) by Damian Wilson. All the elements on their own makes this very impressive, but the album feels like it is seven hours (or more) long and the songs feels more fragmented than coherent. The variation is too big within the individual song and too small for the album in general – it is a chore to listen to it.

I think that one review I read about this album summarise very well how I feel about this album. The reviewer stated that the risk with having so many great musicians in a band is that it becomes a wankfest and that you really should like semen if you should enjoy this rather icky album. Not exactly in those words but that meaning, and it is how it feels, lots of wanking and no real content. The songs kind of build towards a climax that never comes, they build expectations throughout – expectations that in the end fail to materialise like they do in albums from Dream Theater or Ayreon to name a few.

I believe that there is really one word that describes this album: anti-climax, because that is what it is, one massive anti-climax. You are led to believe that they have something great up their sleeve but then they only pull out a sheet of toilet tissue, and you think, “What the hell, did I just waste seven hours waiting for this crappy result”. The fact is that I believe that this is the worst progressive metal album I have heard in the last five years, I cannot come up with anything worse while I am writing this review at least – it is terrible. It is wrong to say that the first album was terrific but at least it was a really strong effort, one that promised a lot more than this is offering – this album doesn’t really offer anything but disdain and an icky, dirty feeling of sadness.

Nothing I fear was scared away by hearing this one, my phobia of musical wanking was rather strengthened than anything else – I don’t really see a point as they could use youtube if they want to promote their own wanking, that way no one has to pay for it. What makes it even worse is that they do some things wonderfully, some melodies, passages, vocal parts are magical and maybe if you peel away all the “look-at-how-well-we-wank-stuff” you could have a magnificent album playing for just short of 40 minutes, but that is only in a theoretical world and you will do well to stay away from this album.

It is the bin that is the best place for this album, at least as far away from any music player as it is humanly possible. If there ever was a thing that could illustrate the word anti-climax it is this album, a lot of good elements that adds up to absolutely nothing.

HHHHHHH