Record Review: Protest the Hero - Fortress (B)

Fortress

Vagrant Records
2/11/2008

I never listen to metal. The closest I get is a little bit of Metallica’s black album, but it was a gift for my eighteenth birthday, so I’m obligated. That being said I may not be the best reviewer for Canadian band Protest the Hero’s album Fortress. I do have the advantage of fresh ears however, plus I’m guessing I can literally hear better than most metal fans.

The first thing that strikes me is the extensive part that the drummer plays in the music. Moe Carlson seems to be giving the floor tom a real workout. It isn’t all just bass and crash cymbal. Protest the Hero makes extensive use of electronic instrumentation, as well as extremely impressive lead and rhythm guitar work. The bass guitar is adequate. The vocals are extremely impressive. Though there’s a fair amount of screaming, there are also a good number of clean vocal phrases and Rody Walker’s voice is quite crisp. Like most good metal, the album is a technical masterpiece, however emotionally and lyrically it probably works best for angst-ridden teenagers. The lead guitar goes on soaring, if short-lived, solos that remind one more of glam rock than metal, but it all seems to fold nicely into the wall of sound that the album braces the listener with. The rhythm of it all is electronically smooth and crafted to be entertaining.

The individual tracks do tend to be variations on a theme, a fault I find with most metal that I’ve heard, but the transitions make sense, and there are differences between songs. The early part of the album is actually a little better than the end. “Palms Read” stands out as the best song. Lyrically, the entire album seems to present a belief in the impossibility of true knowledge, but as the album winds down the lyrics begin to get a bit more preachy and the overall design of each song seems to suffer from a greater reliance on the vocals, while the vocals are becoming less refined. If the last three tracks had been chopped this would have been at least an A- effort. Of course if you don’t have at least an open mind for metal, don’t even attempt this one.