Dan Swanö - Moontower (1999)^{Release ID: 2622}

Dan Swanö has a knack for rewriting the songwriting textbooks. He did it once in 1996 when Edge of Sanity released Crimson, and in 1999, Swanö did it again with Moontower. The heavy emphasis of the synthesizers as a melodic instrument is a huge boost to this album and it provides some remarkable counterpoint between them and the vocals. It had a way of reminding me of Jordan Rudess and the best keyboard moments on the early Dream Theater albums. The vocals are intense and are complimented by a strong backbone. Songwriting is less interested in full on aggression and riffs, focusing more on strong melodic leads and catchiness. "Encounterparts" is one of the best progressive instrumentals because of its insistence on returning to that primary prog hook from the beginning (Dream Theater could learn a thing or two). If this album had fewer harsh screams, I would assume that this was intended to be AOR. Reminded me a lot of the band Nightingale. Moontower, for me anyway, shows a level of maturity from Swanö that is seldom found in progressive music even today. Being able to show off your technical proficiency is one thing, but if you cannot do it in a way that is engaging with the audience, you just look like a try hard. Dan Swanö pulls it off beautifully on Moontower.

Best Songs: Uncreation, Patchworks, Creating Illusions, Encounterparts

For Fans Of: Edge of Sanity, Opeth, modern Amorphis

It's time for another metal binge!  After another 100 albums (I use a lot of EP's to keep up) during my free time to even out the genres on my albums log, I have room for a day of metal.  On top of that, I'm using it to focus on Metal Academy's prog metal challenge, and the next album is Moontower by Edge of Sanity frontman Dan Swano.  I'm familiar with enough Edge of Sanity, and I know not to expect the same thing from this solo project as it's said to be very different.

The most impressive, and seemingly most lauded, aspect of this album among metal fans is that strangely welldone combination of Swano's excellent growls and the cleaner progressive rock elements, synths, melodies, ELP worship and all.  These same kinds of influences that Dream Theater used on their album Images and Words are shoved in your face on the get-go.  There are plenty of synths on this record, and Swano doesn't waste an opportunity to either growl with them or keep the instrumental flow while simply switching the synths with guitars.  An excellent example is "Uncreation."  I mean, man does he worship the 70's on this album.  Tonally, this is a major far cry from anything Edge of Sanity focused on, although some traces of this wiggled its way into my top EoS pick (and top melodeath pick): Crimson II.

Unfortunately, this album doesn't have the same diversity as the aforementioned Images and Words.  I should think a man with Swano's range and constant activity would be able to do something with a little more variety during a solo project.  But each song had essentially the same goal, tone and instrumentation.  While the progressive structures would take fun turns, the whole album is largely hindered by the album's lack of variety hiding behind its successful unique quality.  On top of this, Dan Swano has a diverse vocal range that he just isn't using to a great extent.  How does a guy who's so varied and creative end up in this state?

These songs are all technically good, if not great.  For real prog fans, this is a very and even easily enjoyable one.  But as somewhat of a perfectionist, I also feel that Swano wasted a big opportunity with this album.  So I'm giving this about an 8/10.