Review: The Elephant in the Room – The Elephant in the Room

Style: Traditional Prog Metal (instrumental)
Review by: Nick
Country: USA-MN
Release date: 12-03-2021

I’ve never really been a big fan of instrumental prog albums so why exactly I picked this album is beyond me. Even my deep love of post rock has left me with only so many full albums that I’ve found myself excited to sit through time and time again, and yet something about this album drew me in. Maybe it was the cute cover. I mean an elephant on a cosmic rollercoaster? That’s just too pure. Maybe it was the name. My mom has an obsession with elephants so I’m kind of automatically drawn to anything with the big lovable beasts. But whatever it is that did the trick, I’m glad it did because this is actually a really solid release.

To call The Elephant in the Room a solo effort would be technically correct, but also wrong. From what I gather it’s a similar situation to The Dear Hunter where it is led by one person, largely written by one person, but worked on with whatever hands could be assembled. This is important to note for reasons I will more thoroughly lay out later, but for now I’ll just say that I have full respect for anyone who can pull a project like this off. It takes talent and dedication so cheers for that.

The cover that I mentioned before does a great job of setting the atmosphere for the album. This is evident right on the intro track itself, caked in reverb and this sort of cosmic vibe. “Tapestry” spends its first half building with a sound somewhat reminiscent of 65daysofstatic, very post rock styled guitars with nice bleep bloop melodies. It dives into some brief chugging which makes for a pretty cool climax before dying back down to simple guitars and electronics. It’s just a couple minutes, but it’s a good sampling of the sounds we can expect.

As for the meat of the album, it can really be divided into three main sounds. “All Hands on Deck”, “One Man’s Treasure”, and “For a Reason” largely stick with the more straight forward progressive metal sound. Lots of chugging, a focus on wanky solos, and noodly riffs. “Sporadic Timing” and “2 Suns” have much more of a jazz fusion influence with the later having a straight up jazz section during a guest sax solo. “Red Herring” and “Enola” focus on a post metal sort of sound, bigger on the atmosphere like “Tapestry” and more focused on evolving rather than jumping from section to section. This variation is well dispersed and keeps the album from stagnating like so many instrumental albums tend to.

Now that I’ve got the praise aside, it’s time to address the elephant in the room (hahaha). A lot of this album, and I mean a LOT of this album, feels like a bargain bin David Maxim Micic. It mimics the sound and style of the band without the perfect execution. The compositions feel more stitched together than a coherent movement which leads to a number of the songs feeling a bit rough around the edges. Normally this would be enough to knock an album from “pretty good” to “average”, but the big saving grace here is the presentation. Nowhere in any description do you find a self-congratulating third person perspective about how it’s “saving a dying genre” or some bullshit like that. It’s all first person saying that this was a project he made with people he likes as a learning experience. That it’s work that he’s proud of and excited to share. And you know what? When presented in that context, with some cute goofy artwork, and a fun band name, this album pulls off everything it needs to.

I went into this expecting to write about how bland and derivative it is, but even for all of its flaws, I left feeling completely satisfied. The album is loaded with fantastic melodies and wonderful solos. It’s engaging, it’s entertaining, and it does what it wants. When it hits it hits and when it misses it quickly rebounds. It’s a great debut from a promising artist and I’m excited to see where he goes from here.

Recommended tracks: Sporadic Nomad, Enola
Recommended for fans of: David Maxim Micic, Plini, Sithu Aye
Final verdict: 7/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Independent

The Elephant in the Room is:
– Richie Martinez (drums on tracks 2-8)
– Joe Calderone (bass on tracks 2-3 and 7-8)
– William Jensen (bass on tracks 4, 6)
– Connor Underwood (piano/keys on tracks 2 and 6)
– Adam Bentley (bass on tracks 1 and 5, production, mixing, and mastering)
– Josh May (production and orchestration)
– Brian Bass (everything else)