I've been delaying this for a while, unintentionally, but I have finally gotten my shit together, so let's commence. Behold, the Symphony X discography discussion thread (brought to you by Scorpion).
Arguably the two of the three most important members of what would later become Symphony X met in early 1994, in a music store the Michael Romeo somewhat frequently visited. One employee there, who was teaching piano and keyboard in the store was his future colleague Michael Pinella. Both were influenced by metal and progressive music in their playing on their respective instruments – Pinella on the keys, Romeo on the guitars, so it was no wonder that, later that year, Romeo asked Pinella to play keyboard on his solo album
The Dark Chapter (well, only one track, but still), and the interplay between the two makes it the best track on the otherwise rather mediocre album (in my opinion). Obviously, the two thought that they could work together in the future, and after recruiting Thomas Miller on bass, Jason Rullo on the drums and Rod Tyler on the vocals, Symphony X was born and released their debut in the same year. Which leads us too…
Symphony X (1994)01. Into the Dementia (1:01)
02. The Raging Season (5:01)
03. Premonition (5:37)
04. Masquerade (4:28)
05. Absinthe and Rue (7:16)
06. Shades of Grey (5:41)
07. Taunting the Notorious (3:20)
08. Rapture or Pain (5:05)
09. Thorns of Sorrow (3:54)
10. A Lesson Before Dying (12:07)
Being the only album to not feature what would later become an integral part of the bands sound in the vocals of Russell Allen, this album is often regarded as the black sheep in the Symphony X discography, and frequently listed at the bottom in rankings. I can't say that I disagree, but I do feel it gets somewhat overlooked and unjustly dismissed as not a proper Symphony X album. Okay, Rod Tyler isn't a great vocalist, and vastly inferior to his replacement, but he's not awful either, and most of the songs on this album are either pretty good already, or at least show hints and promises of the greatness that was to come.
My relationship with this album is a weird one. If I remember correctly, the first Symphony X song that I ever heard was "Taunting the Notorious". Don't ask me how that happened, but I'm quite sure it did. I liked the song, but I never explored further for a few years – until I later stumbled across... I think it was "Smoke and Mirrors"? Anyway, I did start listening to Symphony X from that point on, and I loved them, with them even replacing Dream Theater as my favourite band for a short while. However, since pretty much everyone said that the debut wasn't up to scratch, I never bothered with it until, like, two and a half years ago or so – which was when I noticed that that one song seemed quite familiar. I needed a while to make the connection, but when I did, this album received the weird status of being both my first exposure to the band and the last album of theirs that I heard in full. Like I said, complicated.
Looking back, that connection I have with the album might cause me to view both the production values and Rod Tyler's voice on this album a little more favourably than I normally would, but I'm quite sure that I'd probably enjoy this album regardless, because, it is, as I have already said, really quite good.
With that lengthy introduction out of the way, let's get to the meat of this album, shall we? And with the meat, I mean the music on this album. It opens with "Into the Dementia", which is a pretty standard-fare opening track for a progressive metal band. Romeo shreds like nobody's business, and you have some bombastic stuff, but on the whole, it's a pretty forgettable track, something that's probably due to the fact that it doesn't really have any melodic theme or anything - just Michael Romeo saying hello to the world, really. It leads abruptly into...
"Raging Season", which opens with a pretty cool riff, which is very reminiscient of the main riff on "Evolution" (though that probably should be the other way around, but eh). I like the riff, and I like the verses and their melodies (though I'm no fan of the fills that Romeo throws in every four bars), and the pre-chorus is pretty good as well, but I really dislike the chorus. While I don't exactly mind Rod Tyler, his two vocal lines sound almost comical to my ears there. Luckily, that is quickly offset with a brilliant middle section, with some great piano, and nice guitar melody and some cool bass work. The guitar solo isn't that good, but I like the bass shredding under it - Thomas Miller is such an underrated bassist. After a very abrupt transition (that's clearly one aspect they hadn't perfected quite yet), we're back in the pre-chorus/chorus, the latter annoying me again. Honestly, if the chorus weren't what it is, I'd like this one a lot more, but as it is, it's pretty bad, even though I like some parts of it.
"Premonition" opens with some great piano playing by Michael Pinella, and it's a lot calmer than "Raging Season". Again, we have some sweet bass work and some nice guitar lines, before it goes into a heavier riff around the 1:30 mark. What one immediately notices is that the transitions on this track are a lot better, making it a far more pleasant listen. Plus, Rod Tyler doesn't annoy me in this song, that's always a plus. Especially in the chorus, the melodies are very close to something that later-day Symphony X would write, though it would have a greater impact with Russel Allen, of course. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I really like the lead-up into the instrumental section in this one, and while this isn't one of Romeo's greats either, his solo is far better than that garbled mess in the previous track. Going back into the chorus and then into the outro (with a slightly awkward transition, but oh well), this one is immediately better than the opening song.
"Masquerade" is probably one the best-known track off this album, mainly because it's the only one that they have re-recorded with Russel Allen. And that makes it rather hard for me to appreciate this version. This is actually one of Tyler's best perfomances in Symphony X, but it still doesn't hold a candle to Russel. Musically, this is definitely one of the most mature tracks on the debut, with some great riffing, strong classical influences that don't feel overdone, and a really good solo section (dat bass!). It's no wonder that this is the song that they chose to represent the debut on their best-off, and the Russel Allen treatment only improves it. Still, everyone should listen to this version of the song at least once. I actually prefer the outro on this version to "Masquerade '98".
"Absinthe and Rue" starts out as a more mid-tempo track, with what might just be my second favourite riff on the album and then leading into my favourite riff. This is one song where I really like Rod Tyler's vocal contribution, instead of being ambivalent towards what he does at best, like on many other tracks. The chorus is very latter-day Symphony X again (read: awesome), and Romeo delivers a sweet little solo after the first chorus, like he does on many later tracks. I really like bridge on this song, and that calmer part is really good, with an amazing guitar solo, which shows off Romeo's skill at crafting non-shreddy guitar solos. I've never been a big fan of Pinella's solo patches in most cases, and this song is not exception, but other than that, I don't really have anything to complain about on this song. Definitely one of my favourites on this album, if not my absolute favourite (except for another awkward outro).
"Shades of Grey" is my least favourite real song on this album, even though the piano beginning is pretty great, but everything else about this song is just really bland. Plus, Rod Tyler's voice REALLY doesn't work for ballads, and that chorus is one of the worst choruses that Symphony X have ever inflicted upon on my ears. Ugh. The short post-chorus bridge is very good (very "The Edge of Forever"-ish), as is the solo later on in the song, but it's not enough to save this song from the fact that every vocal passage on this song makes me want to punch the computer violently, right on my iTunes icon. Oh well. At least their ballads got a helluva lot better on later albums.
Next up, "Taunting the Notorious", my favourite song on this album. It's the fastest song on this album, and Tyler's vocals work better on the more aggressive stuff, I find. Plus, all the other members are completely on fire here, especially Michael Romeo and Thomas Miller (dat intro!). Honestly, this song wouldn't be out of place on a later-day Symphony X album - maybe
Iconoclast? I can see it really gaining from Russel harsher tone. But I digress. That instrumental section, with the guitar - bass solo trade-off is one of my favourite Symphony X moments ever, and really makes me miss Thomas Miller. I also love how short this song is - at only 3:20 in length, the ridiculously high energy can be kept up throughout, and it works splendidly - except for, again, an unfitting outro.
After that, we have the bland, but not "Shades of Grey"-bad "Rapture or Pain". Honestly, I find it hard to remember anything from this song outside of when I'm listening to it, but it's not bad. Just... unmemorable. Romeo has some cool playing, but the transitions and tempo-changes feel really awkward, Rod Tyler is kinda bad on this track and it's just generally bland. The one exception would probably be the chorus, which is actually quite decent, though somewhat repetitive, but wasted on such a mediocre song. The one thing that I really like about this song is Pinella's harpsichord stuff, but it's not enough to save this from being a snooze-fest.
"Thorns of Sorrow" is probably the song on this album that grew on me most. Initially, I put it about on the same level as "Rapture or Pain", but listening to it now, I'm actually genuinely perplexed as to why. The intro with that organ is great, the main riff is amazing, and Rod Tyler sounds as good as he could ever sound on this track, especially in the verses. The chorus isn't quite up to scratch, but I still like it, just not as much as the rest of the song. The solo section is a real highlight here, with it being the first of the many guitar - key trade-offs, and a really good one as that, mainly because Pinella's solo patch is actually quite decent. Also, FINALLY a song with a decent outro. That wasn't too hard, was it?
Finally, we have reached the album's epic: "A Lesson Before Dying". It's probably my least favourite of their epics, but it's not really all that bad, and I might even prefer it to "Iconoclast". The first part is probably the only time that Rod Tyler sounded good in a calm context, delivering what I'd consider to be his best contribution to Symphony X. Sadly, once we leave the calm, acoustic-guitar-driven part, the song rather quickly becomes a lot more pedestrian - the first distorted riff is actually quite good, but after the second chorus (which is awesome), when the song enters the second calm part, it takes a noteable turn for the worse and never quite recovers. It doesn't help that the song could probably be shortened by about two to three minutes, though there are no explicit parts that I'd cut - it just feels a little lengthy. While parts of this song are really good, it feels a little like they thought "We play progressive metal, we need a 10+ minute song!". Which you don't, as evidenced on the follow-up album. Anyway, this song is middle-of-the-pack for me, which is a shame, because the first five minutes are really good, and there are some moments of brilliance in the second half.
What else can be said about this album? Not much, I suppose. It wasn't really a success in the US, but it was - much like Romeo's previous solo album - quite big in Japan, but then Symphony X have never been really successful domestically, so that's not a big surprise. Oh yes! The production is pretty pants, but that's the case with most debut albums, so I won't rag onto them to much for that. I don't really like the drum sound, but the guitars and the bass don't sound TOO bad, and it's not completely awful, so I guess that's fine. Also, I really like the cover art for its simplicity - it's actually one of my favourite Symphony X covers.
On the whole, I can definitely see why so many people consider this to be the odd one out in Symphony X's discography, and I won't argue with that. Rod Tyler is pretty bad in places, but has some surprisingly good parts as well (like the intro to "A Lesson Before Dying"). But I do think that it shouldn't be written off without listening to it at least once, and it has some killer tracks like "Absinthe and Rue", "Taunting the Notorious" and "Thorns of Sorrow" which give glimpses of the brilliance that was soon to follow suit.
1. Taunting the Notorious
2. Absinthe and Rue
3. Thorns of Sorrow
4. A Lesson Before Dying
5. Premonition
6. Masquerade
7. Rapture or Pain
8. Raging Season
9. Shades of Grey
10. Into the Dementia