adg211288 Trouble With Machines is the second full-length album to be released by US prog act District 97. District 97 are one of a number of rock or metal band’s to have found their lead vocalist from the most unlikely of places – reality TV. In this case the show was American Idol, and the vocalist being Leslie Hunt. District 97 released their debut Hybrid Child in 2010 and at that time also featured a fulltime Cellist in Katinka Kleijn of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, however Kleijn has since left the line-up and now only appears on one track as a guest musician. Trouble With Machines was released in 2012.

Although I heard a bit of hype for Hybrid Child, I didn’t check the album out. The band, I recall at the time though, were being lumped in with the host of female-fronted progressive rock acts that were starting to really make names foe themselves at the time though. I’m talking about acts such as Touchstone, The Reasoning, Panic Room, etc. Having not heard Hybrid Child I’m not qualified to call on how accurate this grouping together was, but Trouble With Machines can be put in with this crowd easy enough, although District 97 are most definitely on the same end of things as Touchstone when it comes down to the heaviness of their music. The thing is, although there is a fair bit of music in the album which is rightly classified as progressive rock, if someone described the album to you as just that, well, they’d either be lying or completely ignorant of what it was they were listening to. You see, District 97 goes one better than Touchstone where heaviness is concerned. Trouble With Machines is not merely influenced greatly by progressive metal, it is progressive metal.

Well okay, to be completely honest Trouble With Machines isn’t the heaviness of metal albums you’ll hear, but the technique of the guitar riffs is most certainly there and more so, it’s consistently there, appearing in every song on the album in at least a small margin and more often than not those riffs are the driving force of the song, to the point that the lighter, progressive rock parts, although equally frequent, come across as simply being used for flavour.

However I’ve always been of the view that if you make good music, what genre you ultimately fall into is completely irrelevant, so go ahead, consider Trouble With Machines metal, or rock, or just call it prog if you like, there’s one constant to consider regardless of what genre you think the album falls into, and that is that this is great music, and when music is as great as this, it transcends the boundaries of genre.

While there are only seven tracks on the album, it does clock in at close to an hour’s worth of music, and several of the songs are lengthy epics. The Thief is the longest of these, having a total time of close to fourteen minutes and doing what else but to close the album in style, the way that saving the best song for last always does, making me want to start the whole album over again because of how great the track is. For other long tracks you also have The Perfect Young Man, a duet between Leslie Hunt and a male vocalist, John Wetton. On the surface this track seems a bit soppy poppy but it’s actually quite sinister if you follow the lyrics, which is easy to do when you have a vocalist as clear as Leslie Hunt. You could also count the opener, Back and Forth, as an epic, since it is closer to the nine minute mark than not. Or, if you share the same view as I do that an epic need not be a lengthy composition, but also a shorter mini-epic, than you could list off each of the seven tracks as one, as Trouble With Machines never ceases to amaze me as District 97 weld their metallic riffs, which are damn fine riffs I might add, with progressive structures and sounds, topped off with Leslie Hunt’s excellent vocals.

The album just flows so well even with the many changes in sound, which include some more hard rock styled parts like Open Your Eyes and the solo cello intro of Read Your Mind. I can honestly say that Trouble With Machines was an album that I loved after a single listen, so obvious were the band’s qualities. A couple more listens and I didn’t need any more convincing that District 97 had a masterpiece on their hands with Trouble With Machines. If it wasn’t obvious already, a top tier album rating is deserved.

98/100

(originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org))

dtguitarfan District 97, from Chicago, was formed in the fall of 2006 by drummer Jonathan Schang, keyboardist Rob Clearfield, bassist Patrick Mulcahy, and guitarist Sam Krahn (who was eventually replaced by the current guitarist Jim Tashijian). This foursome started out playing instrumental rock, which was heavily inspired by Liquid Tension Experiment. Eventually, the band decided they needed a vocalist who would complement their style and sound, and 2007 American Idol finalist Leslie Hunt was chosen. Yes – I said American Idol. I bet you never thought you'd read about an American Idol in a Progressive Rock band, did you?

In any case, Trouble With Machines is District 97's sophomore release, and I feel that - while their debut, "Hybrid Child", was a wonderful and unique album - this album shows maturity and development in style and sound from the previous release. And it is no surprise that the band has earned praise from some big names in the Prog world such as Bill Bruford, John Wetton, and Carl Palmer, as well as chart topping fan support. It is actually quite difficult, in my mind, to place this band into any particular sub-genre, as it presents a unique blending of styles with some Neo Prog, melodic rock, symphonic impressions, hard rock, and even some Progressive Metal style guitar riffs. One of the songs, Perfect Young Man, even feels to my ears sort of like a Prog Rock infused version of a Broadway show tune, especially with the story telling aspect of this song. This melding of styles is complimented extremely well by Leslie Hunt's heavily Jazz-influenced style of singing. Some words and phrases I would use to describe the music of this particular album would be: eclectic, enigmatic, difficult to categorize, playful, clever, exploratory, sassy, and a whole lot of fun. The compositions are wonderfully well thought out, and present many twists and turns, good grooves, complex and playful rhythms, and some excellent musicianship. They even throw some twists at the listener with the choice of instruments, as they feature cello playing (which at one point strangely enough seemed to be played in a similar style to Flamenco guitar playing) and even a short Banjo section. This is truly an inspired piece of work, and an enjoyable and unique release and I highly recommend keeping an eye on this band, as I will be doing.

Originally written for www.seaoftranquility.org