In the six weeks leading up to the release of the new album, I'm revisiting the band's back catalog in chronological order, starting with the first two albums this week! I figured if anyone else wants to join in and re-listen, we can have some discussions about the music two albums at a time.
So far, I've been listening to their debut for the last few days and I have to say, it's one of the better debut albums for an early 00s prog band. I think the term "supergroup" was being tossed around a lot during that time with groups of Transatlantic, OSI, LTE, basically anything Mike Portnoy was a part of, but Roine Stolt was coming off TA and a string of great albums from his "home band" The Flower Kings, so hearing him bring the stellar rhythm section of Jonas and Zoltan to a new band felt like another supergroup hitting the scene. Before The Tangent, I hadn't heard of Andy Tillison or his previous band PO90 (Parallel Or 90 Degrees, from which Sam Baine and Guy Manning also came from), so when I first heard The Tangent, I was going in with wanting to hear more from the TFK members.
I discovered them in late 2006, after A Place In The Queue, and after getting that album, I rushed to get the first two knowing that the Flower Kings trio of Roine/Jonas/Zoltan were a part of that line-up, and BOY what a line-up it was. Knowing that David Jackson was also the band's saxophonist, I was curious as to how the debut would sound because, while I tried getting into Van der Graaf Generator, they never stuck with me during my prog discovery years. Either way, I was hyped to hear a modern prog album that was so steeped in classic 70s prog influence but not in the same way that bands like The Flower Kings, Spock's Beard, or Porcupine Tree were in the 90s.
The jazzy sounds, especially Jonas' bass work, was a breath of fresh air for me at the time, hearing a lot of Genesis and Yes influenced modern prog, and the prominent keyboard work from Andy really struck a chord with me. At a relatively short 48 minutes, when most albums at the time were pushing 70-79 minutes (maybe because they could), this album features just four songs (although the CD has three of its songs split and indexed into their individual movements, a practice I'm glad they haven't revisited).
The opening epic, "In Darkest Dreams", is probably one of my favorite prog epics of the early 00s, and sets the tone and mood for what kind of album (and band) this is. Andy's opening keys are somewhat iconic for me now, almost nostaligic whenever I come back to this album. Having only been familiar with the TFK members of this line-up, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Roine be the first vocalist on the album, but Andy provides some great variety with his unique vocal stylings as well. There is some great grooves and solos peppered throughout this epic, and while one generally thinks of side-length epics as album closers, "In Darkest Dreams" opens the album in powerful ways that songs like "2112" or "Close To The Edge" do for their albums.
"The Canterbury Sequence" is a great jazzy number that refers to a subgenre of prog that I wasn't, and still am not, very familiar with, but hearing it played by these musicians, I really dig what they're doing here, Jonas in particular, especially his bass solo around 3 minutes into the song. The song then carries on with some more great jamming as it fades out and we head into the next song "Uphill From Here", the shortest song on the album. It's a fast-paced rocker and a bit different than anything else on the album, but a fun track nonetheless. This is definitely the kind of song that Andy would continue to write on later albums, and I believe he's the only lead vocalist on this track here as well.
The album closes with another epic, the near 13-minute title track "The Music That Died Alone", which opens with some great piano work from the heavy runs and chords, to some more jazz-influenced parts peppered with some of Roine's great TFK-sounding guitar lines. If there's a song that anyone could possibly call as "Tangent classic", this one might be it. It doesn't end with a grandiose symphonic ending, but it closes the album in a way that seems fitting for the band, and the lyrical message of the song. A very appropriate ending for this fairly strong debut.
I know some folks don't really jive with Roine's or Andy's vocals, but hearing them together here really shows their strong points, as players, writers, and singers. I'd say Roine's two albums with The Tangent are probably two my favorite albums he's ever been a part of (and to be honest, I'd take them over any other side-project he's done outside of TFK or TA, mostly because, as enjoyable as things like The Sea Within or Agents Of Mercy were, these two Tangent albums are where he was able to shine outside of The Flower Kings and do something a little different than the typical symphonic prog he was doing in TFK and TA).
After a few days of listening to their second album, I'll come back and post my thoughts on it, but if anyone wants to discuss the first two, please feel free! I hope there's at least a few people here willing to revisit these albums with me and discuss them a bit as The Tangent, for me, are a Top 10 band.
-Marc.