Review: Max Enix – Far From Home

Style: prog rock, prog metal (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Ayreon, Therion, Pain of Salvation, Mechina
Review by: Andy
Country: France
Release date: 9 June, 2023

I’ve always found Heimskringla’s compositional style to be unique and inscrutable–that’s probably why I’m one of only five monthly listeners. In Heimskringla’s singular approach toward funeral doom, the band don’t really write songs but merely put ideas out into the ether. Guitars, vocal choirs, and impossibly deep growls simply float by on a whim without any clue as to where they’re going, and without the drumming, the album would probably be more ambient than anything. Essentially, their songwriting makes the whole thing incredibly difficult to describe: Max Enix is the second artist I’ve found with this incomprehensibly structured style, but the textures should be more appealing to the prog fans than the mournful, funereal ones. The sonic elements in Far from Home include a star-studded cast of guests, film score inspired orchestrations, and whatever other prog rock stereotypes you’d find in an Ayreon album–all while approaching the length of Therion’s infamous parvum opus, Beloved Antichrist, even including less professional opera singing. I will get back to the songwriting style of Far from Home, don’t fret, but this album is long enough that I’m gonna say… 

Here’s a bunch of things that I could feasibly do in two hours and forty minutes: 

1. I could listen to Relentless Mutation, a top ten all time album, five times with ample time to spare.

2. I could run close to twenty miles.

3. I could watch a certain species of bamboo grow five inches. 

4. I could call any number of family members, loved ones, and friends. 

5. One eighth of the entire lifespan of the mayfly will pass. 

6. I could literally drive to another country. 

7. Or, alternatively, I could listen to Far from Home by Max Enix one time.

For two hours and forty minutes, Max Enix floats through a prog dimension while not once using a proper transition. The album is disorienting. Nothing flows; songs and movements jaggedly start and stop on Max Enix’s whims, and Enix’s whims are about as split as a child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, jacked up on caffeine and now set free with $100 (£78.91 for my British readers) in a candy store. If he has an idea, he immediately implements it, sparing no expense; for instance, twice in Far from Home the song will randomly implement mediocre rap, but he’s just as happy to have a guest guitar solo or random opera bit–the last garnering the other part of the Therion comparison. Regarding the “sparing no expense,” Max Enix features everybody in prog on this it feels like, from Derek Sherinian, who will solo on any prog project for a crisp $2 bill, to the entire Budapest Symphony Orchestra, which must have cost Enix north of $25k. In total, thirty-four individual guest musicians make appearances at some point in the slog, yet despite the strong cast of guests, I cannot for the life of me figure out where anything happens even with several listens and note taking. 

I have a couple theories as to why. First, every single vocal part (except the randomly placed rap breaks) follows an uncanny dotted half note pattern with little variation. This unusual cadence coupled with the suppression of the guest vocalists’ unique timbres homogenizes them. Except for Damian Wilson (Headspace, Threshold), whose performance in “Mirrors of Time” stands out as extraordinary, each vocalist loses their originality. The unique voices of Kobi Farhi (Orphaned Land) and Fabio Lione (Rhapsody) who I would recognize anywhere, for instance, are indistinguishable from any of the other several dozen vocalists without reading along to the album notes helpfully provided on Bandcamp. The lilting vocal pattern that Enix continually falls back on for both his own singing parts–which are very rough around the edges but performed with conviction–and his guests sounds like singing ordinary speech in some ways, almost as if it’s sung in sprung rhythm, but the whole schtick comes off as awkward and tiring. Secondly, every track falls into similar “songwriting” traps where Enix will compose a ballad-y section, suddenly veer into a solo or heavier section with more intense orchestration, and then go back to the same ballad-y section just with different lyrics–all sung in the same pattern as before. You’d think that repeating motifs would be useful in finding a place in the album, but instead it almost becomes like a droning annoyance. The song “City of Mortals” is a particularly strong example as the clichéd little intro melody comes back to haunt me time and time again throughout the ten minutes. Once Max Enix has an idea, you will never escape it. This facet of his composition explains why the album is so long: Max Enix will repeat his little melodic riffs ad nauseam… and then after you’ve thrown up he’ll bring the same exact thing back a few minutes later. Eleven out of fourteen of the songs are over 9:30 while zero have the quantity or quality of ideas to merit the excessively bloated length.

Onwards we plunge into the mind of Max Enix, as challenging as it has been to understand. Pimping out a full orchestra for your underground prog rock project is amazing, and I applaud him for the endless enthusiasm for Far from Home; however, if you’re gonna big ball like that, MIX THE GODDAMN THING PROPERLY. The Budapest Symphony Orchestra is so compressed in the over-loud mix that their parts may as well be synthesizers like most small budget prog rock. The orchestra sounds its best during the quieter moments because during loud moments, such as any song’s random “climax”–for lack of a better term since Enix is incapable of building crescendos to climax–the unbridled layering of vocal and instrumental parts makes everything downright hard to decipher, especially the delicate symphonics. 

The few moments that I can recall from the album demonstrate the potential for a more prim, mature project, though. “Prayer of the Gods” has a dope cascading drumline with the film score-esque vocals of Angèle Macabiès (curiously labeled as “ethnic vocals” in the liner notes). As absurd as the rap section turned opera in “Tears of the Earth” is, it admittedly is memorable and executed with enough conviction and precision that I’ll let it slide. Sometimes the random experimentation and formlessly stream-of-consciousness songwriting work in old Max’s favor. But just as often, parts that stick out don’t do so positively.

I’ve got two more hours of music I could dissect, but the remainder largely follows the same exact formula, especially that damn unchanging vocal line that stands as a testament to how not to write singing parts. Instead, I’ve gotta briefly mention the story! Of course, Max Enix is clearly a well-cultured man of prog, and his personal magnum opus follows in the great tradition of PROG as a concept album, and he helpfully provides detailed lyrics including story cues to help guide you. And it’s necessary because it’s simultaneously horrifically basic and needlessly convoluted. The odd lyrics and delivery don’t do the story any favors either. Essentially, the concept is nonsensical and the lyrics are some of the worst I’ve heard in ages. Max Enix constantly trying to force himself into an opera singing role when he clearly doesn’t have the talent only exacerbates the situation. I cannot adequately describe how cringe inducing the lyrics can be, but I highly recommend reading along to see. Prog is practically known for its proclivity for cheesy, often downright bad, lyrics–I can stomach some fluff–but c’mon man, have higher standards… Chat GPT could write a more artistic concept album.   

I really need to wrap this whole thing up because it’s now over twice the length of my average review–as if the album isn’t three times as long as a typical album–but I really think I’ll just kinda let the review naturally fizzle out. The 26:38 long closer almost uses typical songwriting like a buildup, and then it suddenly just ends. Max Enix doesn’t earn a real outro paragraph. Farewell Max, my time with you and Far from Home was far too long: Please learn how to edit. 

Recommended tracks: Prayer of the Gods, Mirrors of Time
You may also like: Reign of the Architect, Circus Maximus, The Flower Kings
Final verdict: 2/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook

Label: independent

Max Enix is:

Max Enix: Music, Vocals, Artistic director, Lyrics/story…

Thomas Kubler: Additional arrangements, Orchestrator
François Rousselot: Conductor

Leo Margarit: Drums
Vikram Shankar: Piano/Keyboards
Jean-Jacques Moréac: Bass
Xavier Boscher: Guitars
Elise Wachbar: Vocals