Style: Progressive Metal, Power Metal, Symphonic Metal (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Dream Theater, Haken, Symphony X, Ayreon
Review by: Christopher
Country: Italy
Release date: 15 July, 2022
The edifice of modern progressive metal is built upon foundations of Dream Theater and Haken, and so many groups have utilised that sound that standing out against the crowd can be difficult. Wait, what if you tried a female vocalist instead?! Wait, no, they’re ten-a-penny now, too… The fact of the matter is it’s an overstuffed genre, no two ways about it. What always counts here is quality and having a vision that can stand out, even a little bit, against the crowd. Italian five-piece Backfire recently dropped their debut album, The Two Of Us, and it’s eighty-one minutes long, which is one way of standing out. That’s nearly double the length of many albums, and you have to be able to justify such a prodigious runtime. Can they pull it off?
First off: it’s all impeccably mixed and produced; this is high quality sound for a debut. But the most important thing is whether Backfire can play well. Put it this way: they didn’t backfire (stop booing me!). “Omega” kicks the album into gear with an instrumental overture: riffs aplenty, blistering synth solo, calm keyboard sections — this is the shape of the next hour and a bit. Our first taste of the vocals comes with “A Mind By Itself” and there’s no denying that Naomi Gemignani can belt it out with the best of them, her soaring, lightly accented delivery proving reminiscent of Noa Gruman of Scardust.
Backfire are at their most impressive when they play with elements outside the tried-and-true modern prog wheelhouse. The jazz sections on “A Story to Tell” and “Lex Naturalis” are a legitimate delight; on the former, these breaks take a somewhat commonplace ballad to giddy new heights. Meanwhile, the mid-section in “Killed Freedom” has all the ominous calm of an old Opeth track; the syncopated whispers on “The Illusion of Life” have a BTBAM quality; and “Ghoulish Sight” throws in a dozen special features, including an 8-bit riff and complex Haken-esque multiple vocal harmony.
However, these stand-out moments aren’t the bulk of the album. Instrumentally, there’s not much to say; if you know the genre’s heavy-hitters then a lot of this will be familiar. The interplay of guitar and synth in instrumental sections is a dead-ringer for Haken much of the time, the more galloping power metal elements are cadged from Symphony X, and more than a whiff of Portnoy, Myung, Rudess and Petrucci haunts the composition.
The final tracks “Ghoulish Sight” and “Alpha” jointly account for half an hour of the album’s runtime and they could probably be a bit shorter, but I have to admit that they’re undeniably epic. Nevertheless, “Ghoulish Sight” is guilty of solo spam, and such excess is an issue throughout The Two of Us, hardly a surprise in such a lengthy record. As much as the performances are astonishing, but they’re a bit like an enormous Christmas dinner; they may add up to a very satisfying meal but they leave you painfully stuffed. Clearly Backfire have never heard the phrase “less is more”, and while their “more is more” approach works more often than not, they’d nevertheless do well to rein in some of their overindulgence. The laidback piano and acoustic guitar-led ballad “Fade Away” is a case in point. It’s the calmest track on the album and provides a much-needed respite from the unrelenting showcase of ability, but when the guitar solo inevitably arrives the evocative Slash-like bends soon give way to a glut of shred which detracts from the overall mood. Time and again the more restrained moments on this album are undermined by a desperate need to show-off and there’s simply no need for it. The virtuosity is obvious: show me what you can do with less.
Don’t let it be said that these aren’t stellar musicians: guitarist Alberto Barsi and keyboardist Giacomo Bruno are both intensely proficient players by any metric, and form a fearsome duo. As much as the lyrics are somewhat trite – generic laments of loves gone sour and Earthly destruction by hubristic humanity – Gemignani’s incredible vocal prowess gives them a sorely needed gravity. And special mention should go to bassist, Luca Riccomini, who does a heroic, unflashy job of weaving his own satisfying little riffs throughout. There’s much to enjoy here, but Backfire aren’t exactly going to upend the genre.
Few debuts go as hard as this, and I can’t emphasise enough that Backfire are an incredibly talented group, but it’s hard to escape the fact that a lot of this album will sound abundantly familiar to fans of the iconic power and trad prog groups of the genre. The Two of Us is delivered with aplomb and sincerity, and its assiduous moxie does a lot to patch over the cracks. The creative flourishes see Backfire at their best; honing those elements, while paring down the excess and hero-worship, will do them the world of good. But for now The Two of Us is a fabulously flawed debut.
Recommended tracks: Lex Naturalis, A Story to Tell, Fade Away
You may also like: Scardust, Black Painted Moon, Turbulence
Final verdict: 7/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives page
Label: Independent
Backfire is:
– Naomi Gemignani (vocals)
– Alberto Barsi (guitars)
– Luca Riccomini (bass)
– Alessandro Giusfredi (drums)
– Luca Riccomini (keyboard)
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