Style: Traditional/Power (clean vocals)
Review by: Sam
Country: Sweden
Release date: 01-11-2018
NOTE: This album was originally included in the November 2018 issue of The Progressive Subway
“Album over 2 hours? Holy shit. 95% review? Holy shit. No one knows about this band. Holy shit even more. Samples sound good! Holyshitholyshitholyshit. A bit close to DT at times, but many of my favorites share that trait so I don’t mind.”
Such was my thought process when I stumbled upon this record. A 2 hour underground album is usually underground for a reason, but on the other hand there’s a serious chance it’s one of the best albums of the year. Such ridiculous length signifies a vast amount of boldness and ambition that is usually only seen with the absolute best of the genre. It can also be a sign of overestimating oneself, which is more likely than not, but in this case I chose to take a huge leap of faith and take the plunge.
It pains me to say that, this is undoubtedly not great. While I love Dream Theater-adjacent bands, this steers a little too close to them. Add in Seventh Wonder and Symphony X to the mix and you have basically all Seventh Dimension have to offer. There are other bands very close to DT which I enjoy immensely like Vanden Plas or Circus Maximus, but both of them still have distinct attributes which separate them from the New Yorkers. Seventh Dimension however lack such attributes. Basically all they do can be traced back to the first three bands I mentioned.
What’s most annoying about this record is the lack of songwriting ability. Sure these guy can play the hell out of their instruments, but there’s just no cohesion. And that their singer is utterly forgettable doesn’t help either. Sure he can sing, but his vocal lines and delivery are predictable and boring as hell. And it seems like the bands thinks this as well, because their instrumental sections go on forever, almost as if they’re afraid of letting their vocalist get back to his mic. It’s really stupid. Imagine the unison solo at the end of Beyond This Life’s bridge, and instead of LaBrie coming back with “All that we learned this tiiiiiimmmeee // Is caaarried beyond this liiiifffeee”, they continue the instrumentals, and almost immediately begin building up to another climactic unison solo, but this time we’re in The Glass Prison. Sure, both solos are awesome, but without the transition back into the song they become meaningless. That’s basically what you get with Seventh Dimension (see the 18-minute epic The Dreamer’s Escape for example, which on another note also completely rips off Symphony X on the opening riff).
So on the whole this band is just not worth it. They are certainly ambitious, but right now they first need someone who can actually write songs (and interesting vocal lines). This is just a bloated, unoriginal, incohesive mess of an album. And then I even forgot to mention it’s a concept album, which you can read about it on their website. I did not dig into the concept however as the music is just subpar. Not recommended.
Recommended tracks: none
Recommended for fans of: Seventh Wonder, Symphony X, Dream Theater
Final verdict: 5/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Metal-Archives page
Label: Corrupted Records
Seventh Dimension is:
– Nico Lauritsen (vocals)
– Luca Delle Fave (guitars)
– Marcus Thoren (drums)
– Rikard Wallstrom (bass)
– Erik Bauer (keyboard)
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