Iris Divine

Hello all who read my blog!...which consists of me!!
Sorry I haven't posted in forever, I've been busy doing end-of-high-school-career things.
I wrote back and forth on Myspace to a progressive metal band called Iris Divine, at first criticizing them for not truly being progressive, but then encouraging them for their progressive aspects in other songs. They can be pretty progressive, but just don;t have a commitment to it the way I do. Here, I'll paste my original comment on the video for their single:
"Let's see...standard pop structure, less than five minutes long, short bridge section, horrible piece of noise solo, 4/4 all the way through......
Completely progressive. "
Sounds pretty harsh, right? I expected a single from a progressive metal band to be a condensed form of an awesome song, like Dream Theater, not a pop/rock song that hopefully doesn't represent the band at all. Of course, they forwent good things about the genre and kept the annoying aspects, such as a horrible-sounding solo that isn't "accessible" like the rest of the song. (I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the word 'accesible' usually means prog hypocrisy or selling out.)The drummer/spokesman for Concrete Prophet, who promoted the band in their newsletter, replied back, There's another guy named Brian Dobbs in Iris Divine, and I'm convinced they're the same person.
"Patience WCR4. Even Dream Theater has 4/4 songs. Check these guys out on their MySpace page. You'll find some odd-times there, but even more live in person.

;-)

Brian "
Apparently he forgot my name, even though we were messaging back and forth for a while there. Oh well. Maybe I turned him off with all my negative reviews of his band's songs. (I have yet to see evidence of being progressive.)
He has a point though.
The remainder of today's post will be my words reviewing their music on Myspace, cut from the messaging back and forth between me and Iris Divine.

The only indication that that song was associated with the word "progressive" is that it featured a horrible, unmusical, noisy solo that mirrors the very unfortunate sound that Dream Theater is devolving into. Seriously, the solo sucks.
I guess singles should be treated with more leniency, even for strict prog fans. The thing is about solos like that is it just sounds like the musician is putting more emphasis on the instrument and the technique than the musicality of the solo. Maybe I just haven't learned to appreciate it yet. "Rite of Passage" is Dream Theater's newest single, and the keyboard solo is like that. Which is weird because keyboards don't have whammy bars. (If I'm repeating stuff from earlier posts, it's because I'm pretty much just pasting stuff from my Myspace messages and altering subjects and stuff.)
Iris Divine's response to that:
"dude, funny you should mention...I actually share your sentiments about latter-era Dream Theater, and DEFINITELY prefer Kevin Moore's atmospheric/ melodic contributions to Rudess' widdly-widdly nonsense.

The solo in Broken was intended specifically to convey a chaotic vibe or texture, rather than function as a traditional solo with an emphasis on note choice, melodic development, etc. Almost like an effect. If he wanted to just 'shred' mindlessly, he would have at least done it in key :) We actually avoid shred-for-shred's sake as much as possible.

I really do hope you check out our other jams...we definitely love getting feedback from educated music fans! The other tracks have more musical guitar solos and prog hallmarks, and I suspect you will dig them more overall."
I like Kevin Moore a lot too, although I like what Derek Sherinian has done in Planet X and solo. (Now I definitly agre with him about Jordan Rudess. Dream Theater should reinvent themselves with a new singer and a keyboardist. Get a singer who can growl, since apparently that's the direction they want. Derek Sherinian now would be better suited for them, but he wouldn't accept)
Your other songs are more progressive metal, and I like them.
I noticed that they did two sets of two eighth notes and a set of three in order to accomplish 7/8 and sometimes used syncopation to make it 7/4. That might be the lamest way to do seven ever. I wrote about it in my music blog. http://z.pe/8AG (that of course, leads to the post about 7/4)
I like their style though- especially the vocals. They took some getting used to, mainly because they are neither operatic or death growling as progressive metal sometimes features.
He replies:
"sometimes in a progressive-type band, the challenge is to simplify, rather than rely on complexity just because we can. Musical mind-benders are OK, but unless used sparingly, they become tough to listen to (in our opinion at least). Conventional does not always = bad.......Our songs are ALWAYS written with vocals as the top priority, which probably sets us apart from some other prog bands." I agree that most progbands, including myself, don't care too much about vocals. It's just that instruments are so much cooler! But I have to have a vocalist so people will listen....I would tend to be less of a conformist than these guys.

I know what they mean about simplifying, in my music I sometimes go overboard with polyrhythms and stuff...although if you go overboard enough, you're labeled "innovative, groundbreaking," etc. It really just matters what kind of music you want to make, and if you want to experiment in a way people don't like, that's your right, just don't expect people to like it! I also know what they mean about gratification gained from people thoroughly listening...I would hate to put out such great music and not be acknowledged for its subtleties (to non-trained ears). Their vocal approach is sorely needed among progressive metal bands, and makes the music more accessible. Dream Theater is my favorite band, so uncredited songs below are theirs. Sean Malone is the bass player for Cynic- he's insane! (Although I don't think they have too much to offer for Cynic fans, but that's speaking from only two Cynic songs I've heard)

Ok, let's give 'Unspoken Tragedy' a try...is it like 'Fatal Tragedy'?
Nice 11/8 6/4 alternation! It's not 12/8, obviously because it's not a compound beat. Five against six on the verse- it's difficult to play the five while still grooving in the six, (I know because I tried it) but you have to in order to change at the same time. Reminds me of the beginning of 'Take the Time' where it's four against six then four against 12/8, which is easier than a prime number. (Prime numbers are the stuff of life)
Sweet bridge! Reminds me of a part in Metropolis Pt. I.
Bass solo! I like his tone a lot better than what he played.
I like the little switch to duple time in the last verse.
This is the stuff! The awesome stuff!! (Let me remind you that this is my letter to them and parentheses are added comments, not little annoying things. Okay maybe they are.)

"Intension Experiment", is that supposed to sound like Liquid Tension Experiment? (I think it is, because they didn't spell Intention correctly.(
7/4 6/4 7/4 8/4, great work here. Nice E diminished riff. (Key is C# minor) I would have the drummer just play in 7/4 through it. It reminds me of "A Pistol to my Temple" by Scary Kids Scaring Kids, which is 6/4 7/4 6/4 8/4. That is a really cool song, I think it's about not killing yourself. The bridge to that song is sweet! (I say 8/4 rather than 4/4 because it's way easier. For one thing, it's closer to 7, and also 7/4 4/4 4/4 is way more confusing and space inefficient. Just so you know, when I have two or more time signatures written right next to each other like that, I mean that it's alternating between those. I learned that from 'Let the Light Shine', a sweet song I played in band my junior year of high school. Notating time signatures like this is annoying! I don't like the term 'meter', but it's way less annoying to type and say than 'time signature' over and over. Similar to 'prog'- I thought it was annoying [a word I've used for the past three sentences], pretentious, and confusing to non-nerds, but writing progressive over and over gets old. I don't really like people who proclaim that their music is 'ethereal' and 'atmoshperic', probably because I don't really know about that, probably because it has to do with keyboard patches more than tabs.
To make a subject plural in the English tongue: Move the 's' from the end of the verb to the end of the noun. I never did like the idea of "dropping the 'e' and adding 'ed' to the end" from elementary school. It's inefficient, but I guess it's a generic rule applying to verbs that don't end with a silent 'e', a letter that only changes the pronunciation of the preceding vowels.)

Anywaaaayyy, this guitar tone reminds me of the Awake album by Dream Theater. I wonder if they have several backing vocalists. I like the different effects they put on the singing. Hooray for a 5/4 bridge, even if it is just two measures of 5/8 causing syncopation. It's kind of lame in that regard. Ha! The drums in the guitar solo almost got me! I've used that trick myself to fool people into thinking that it's an odd meter. It reminds me of the bridge to 'YYZ' by Rush and 'Take the Time' by Dream Theater. Nice solo. The main riff sounds like Flyleaf a little bit. That's not a good thing- listen to 'Fully Alive' and then we'll talk. (Very pattern-based, pentatonic gimmicks that n00bs come up with [I know because I came up with several when I first started out]) The ending is sweet!
There's a similar band called Sun Caged, they're on Myspace. More on them later.
Speaking of YYZ, the Morse code ratio between short and long is actually one to three, I think, which would make the time signature 7/4 instead of 5/4!
Or if it's 4:1 (I'm too lazy to look it up right now) it would be 9/4.
Yeah anyway, I've majorly updated my Priffle sheet, and I've got a bunch of sweet peeps. Maybe I'll talk about the most promising one in a little while.