A marriage between instrument and artist every Hard ‘n’ Heavy fan should witness: In his most recent work, Orchesträte, Michael Harris opens the gate to a world of music and virtuosity.
During the second song, “String Theory,” you might envision him gently touching his instrument as a man would his bride on their honeymoon. Classifications like Acoustic or Electric do not matter for this artist. Who needs a singer, when you can make your instrument cry out in such a sweet voice?
But not to be mistaken, this one is not lacking power at all, like a marriage is not only a honeymoon, because sometimes there might be dark clouds mixing into the pink-ish horizon. And sure enough, song number three, “The Mad Composers Rage,” is a real banger. Whirling solos combined with neck-breaking riffing, and as always, a bombastic setting, showing where this CD got its name from in the first place.
Well, this is Progressive music, and counting all the breaks would take days. The composer himself describes this mixture as “Neo Orchestral Metal,” and the label (Lion Music) even speaks of this release as “the most ambitious album” in Harris’career.
Harris reserved the following words for his work: “My original vision was to go back to my “Defense Mechanizms” roots, yet to focus on one style, Neo-Classical Metal. As the record developed, I realized “Orchestral” was a better term, so I consider the record to be my one & only Neo-Orchestral record. My previous instrumental records have had some “Classical meets Metal” compositions, but this record is focused exclusively on that style. I recorded all the backing strings, etc., on my keyboard, and rather than playing chords, most of the time I treated it like scoring an orchestra, recording one “voice” at a time. There is still plenty of guitar, of course, and drummer Matt Thompson did an outstanding job. My focus compositionally was to create strong themes first and foremost, before the musicianship & full arrangements came into play.”
As these words might indicate: Michael Harris orchestrating is not suitable for “by the way” listening, because there simply is too much to discover in every track. But, Harris did not “only” play the guitar parts all by himself … instead, like he mentioned, every keyboard note was created by his own hands. These underlinings give every single song its own atmosphere, from creepy to heartbreaking. Standing Ovations!
A “No Brainer” for fans of Prog-Rock/Metal.
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