| I'm ready to vote. At first listen, I felt somewhat positive about both of these albums, but with repeated listens, I found my enjoyment went down a little, probably because both albums feel too long for my tiny ADHD brain. The Mercury Tree isn't really my kind of music at all. I definitely hear the King Crimson influences here, although the band this album made me think of most is Gentle Giant, which isn't one of my favorites. The music is well played and very clever, but it's just not that enjoyable for me, because a lot of it is what sounds to me like inside-out music. The Powerized is stylistically more up my alley. I didn't really like the vocalist that much - I hear him as very Geddy Lee, and while I've come to appreciate Lee over the years, he was an acquired taste for me. I don't feel that his voice is interesting enough to carry a full album of this length. On the other hand, at least the music sounded right-side-out to me, and I particularly liked some of the piano work, and the orchestral parts. I don't listen to enough of this style of music to have a really good frame of comparison - the closest I can come is Dream Theater if you replaced James LaBrie with a Geddy Lee style vocalist. (But I know that doesn't really cover it). In any event, my vote is for Powerized. | |
My vote wasn't nearly enough to help Powerized, though.
Final Results: The Mercury Tree 11 votes, Powerized 2 votes.
(Wasn't shocked, as I've noticed that Progressive Metal bands haven't done particularly well in the previous Prog Rock tournaments. The majority of participants tend to lean much more towards classic progressive rock than progressive metal. Nevertheless, this was a pretty decisive victory.)
