Acracy (conclusion)

Acracy

Doorways to Destiny

April 5th, 2019

1.Liberation (Control Denied) 6:29

2.Aging Desires (9:35)

3.Book of Faces (9:26)

4.On My Own (6:09)

5.A Love Least Expected (9:25)

6.Come with Me (11:05)

This is the conclusion to the commentary on Acracy's debut album. The two previous parts are here.

metalbulletin.blogspot.com/2019/04/acracy_13.html

metalbulletin.blogspot.com/2019/04/acracy-continued.html

The other day I was listening to some big-name progressive album, but I got so bored. Do you know why progressive music can be so mind numbingly boring? Because so many bands refuse to rock. I feel like some musicians are so full of themselves or so “done with metal” that they just don’t want/know how to rock anymore. The playing may be fine, the singing good, the production excellent (if they have money and resources), the lyrics good, but there is no rocking music to be found. I can’t hang with that. If a band see themselves as “beyond rock and roll” and they really think that “metal is kind of stupid,” and this attitude comes across in the boring, colorless, midpaced plodding grooving, then I’m out. Hasta la vista, baby.

I mention this issue because someone (or someones) in Acracy seems to understand that they may be a progressive band, but this is a metal band, too. Hey, I do not want to hear a band croon like some sort of tortured-soul intellectual Michael Bublé for 93 minutes. What on Earth are those drums for, then? Why do you need that electric guitar distortion for, really? Are you trying to do philosophy with songs? That’s not possible. If you want to write a treatise on philosophy, then you should write an actual treatise on philosophy.

If Rush, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Opeth, Queensrÿche, Enslaved or Whitechapel, Rivers of Nihil, Job for a Cowboy, Devin Townsend, and even Evergrey (on a couple of occasions!) and so many other bands have figured out how to rock and be progressive, then it is possible to do it. Or, a band can cry and moan like Pain of Salvation for 186 minutes or choose to make music-for-musicians and be nerds like Dream Theater. I cannot and will not listen to grown people cry in their music for 289 minutes (or however long albums are these days). Well, you can do a bit of crying in the rain in the still of the night. We all understand that the sun is shining, but it’s raining in your heart, but don’t cry the whole time. Patience has its limits, people. I already have about a dozen crying children who go around having meltdowns and crying about spilled milk all day long. I don’t need my music to be annoying like that, too.

Acracy seems to understand all of this perfectly well. Check out the last two songs on this album. Both are on the longer side of things, both have plenty of good musicianship on display, and if you read the lyrics you’ll see that this is most likely based on the difficulties of finding a soulmate. Emotionally, there are some low, painful moments that are expressed in the music, but this is not cry-in-my-beer music. There are sad moments, this is progressive, but this is rocking metal, too.

“A Love Least Expected” takes the listener through the high and lows, but the lows are not the main part of the song; and we get plenty of guitar-and-rhythm-section action, and the singing is no sob-story vibe, either. “Come with Me” begins as a ballad for the first few minutes, then it lays down the transition towards changes of pace. This is probably the most laidback song on the album, serving as the last piece of the puzzle. Once a listener becomes more familiar with this last track, it is a dynamic song with distinctly different segments (a groove section, an uptempo part, a solo, so on and so forth). In conclusion, the album as a work offers a variety of moods with solid, experienced instrumentation and with an abundance of melodies to keep the audience coming back for more. The discography of Acracy has begun well. Looking forward to more chapters.

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