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The Interpreter is the debut full-length album by UK progressive metal act My Soliloquy. The album was released in 2013. My Soliloquy have actually been around for over a decade by this point but haven’t put out anything more major than an EP, Esoterica, and that was as far back as 2007. My Soliloquy features among their number Pete Morten (vocals and guitars), who also plays with Threshold.
The Interpreter features a largely song-based progressive metal sound opposed to long and winding epic compositions, although the average length of each of the tracks is still quite mid-range, always longer than five minutes, but shorter than eight. The sound of the actual music though has much more in common with traditional progressive metal, featuring both creativity and complexity while it’s made to sound a bit more modern through the use of quite substantial lashings of symphonic elements, and a much rarer use of power metal, while on the lighter side of things the band isn’t afraid to tone their sound done a bit towards progressive rock standards. It’s a sound that right from the off speaks volumes about the potential of the band, who also aren’t afraid to think outside the rock/metal box, as is evident in the intro of Corrosive De-Emphasis, which is electronic/techno music.
The weak link unfortunately is the vocals of Pete Morten. The man has a pleasant enough voice and carries The Interpreter well enough across the eight tracks, but throughout I couldn’t shake the feeling that the material would have made a bigger impact on me overall if his vocals were just that bit stronger. There are some parts of the music that he does well but more often than not his voice comes over as bland and uninspiring, which puts him in contrast with the music in the wrong way.
The songs themselves are mostly solid with the occasional highlight cropping up, such as opener Ascension Pending, but there are also a couple which don’t work for me, like Star, which closes the album in a balladry style which comes over as excessively cheesy in all the wrong ways. Taken individually almost every track does have its merits, but as a whole The Interpreter is slightly underwhelming. This is a good debut album, but I can’t help but think that in the over ten years it’s taken My Soliloquy to get this far they should by rights have come up with something stronger. I still feel mostly positive about the album, enough to award it a ‘good album’ tier rating, but the only lasting impression that this one leaves is that it could easily have been so much more. Good, but patchy.
71/100
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/my-soliloquy-the-interpreter-t2873.html))