UMUR
"A Dream in Static" is the debut full-length studio album by US, New England based progressive metal act Earthside. The album was independently released in October 2015. Earthside consists of four well educated and highly skilled guys, who all have college degrees in music composition and production (or other similar educational skills). It´s like reading the Dream Theater fairytale again, but these guys of course deserve to be judged on their own merits. Earthside doesn´t feature a permanent vocalist, so the band have enlisted the services of singers like Lajon Witherspoon (Sevendust), Björn Strid (Soilwork), Daniel Tompkins (Tesseract), and Eric Zirlinger (Face The King, Seer).
"A Dream in Static" features 8 tracks, and a full playing time 63:52 minutes. The album opens with the instrumental "The Closest I’ve Come", and it´s audible from the get go, that we´re dealing with incredibly skilled musicians and composers. The performances are tight and the playing technically challenging. The material are relatively varied and while there are both heavy rhyhtms and hard edged riffing on the album, there are also a lot of more atmospheric parts, which lean more towards progressive rock than progressive metal. There are even hints at post-rock which the slow building and atmospheric "Entering The Light" is an example of. The band make the use of different guest lead vocalists work pretty well. The album does however become slightly inconsistent and feels a little more like a "project" instead of a band effort, because there isn´t a designated vocalist in the band, but there is no denying that Earthside have chosen some really skilled guest vocalists who fit well with the instrumental part of the music.
"A Dream in Static" is a very well produced affair, featuring a powerful, clear, and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly. Fans of the more polished and accessible type of progressive rock/metal should be thrilled with this album on all parameters from the high level performances, to the professional sound production, to the intriguing and clever compositions. To my ears Earthside need to work on a more unique sound (there´s very little here that´ll surprise fans of the genre or which sets Earthside apart from other contemporary artists), and a little more raw edge wouldn´t hurt either, but that´s a purely subjective point of view and quality wise, this is a high quality release and a 4 star (80%) rating is fully deserved.