SHADRANE – Temporal

Shadrane is the band project of keyboardist Vivien Lalu (Lalu, Hubi Meisel), Dutch guitar virtuoso Joop Wolters and the legendary rhythm section of the brothers Bissonette, Matt and Gregg, whose names appear on great works by Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, etc.

Temporal represents the project’s debut release and in order to handle the vocals the help of many different singers was employed. This includes Göran Edman (ex-Yngwie Malmsteen, Street Talk, Brazen Abbot, etc.), Björn Jansson (Tears Of Anger, Ride The Sky) and Henrik Båth (Darkwater). Martin LeMar of Tomorrow’s Eve fame was called on to provide some strong backing vocals.

Musically Temporal is fourteen tracks of a wonderful blend of Progressive Metal/ Power Metal/ Rock Metal and even Pop Rock. In theory Temporal is a concept/story driven release but one that is not stereotypical as the lyrics don’t follow the story’s order. The lyrics are indeed inspired by the story but they’re not painting the story’s events in chronological order like a movie, script or book would do.

The story is one of war, love, grief, mourning and redemption. The tale revolves around two US Naval Officers in the early 1940’s one who harbors a secret hate against his commanding officer. The commanding officer gets involved with a Japanese woman and then secretly, while committing treason, tries to protect her from the Pearl Harbor bombing. What follows next is a lengthy tale of murder, regret, sorrow, guilt… the full gamut of human emotions. Occasional voice overdubs add realism to the story without detracting from the music.

The opening track “Temporal” should get its hooks into the listener though as it starts out timid before bursting into a nice Melodic Rock piece fueled by a catchy chorus delivered by Henrik Båth as it veers towards the end by picking up the tempo with some nice guitar fills. “Madoka”, which follows, comes across as more Pop Rock inspired then heavy Progressive Metal even though it has a ballsy guitar mid-section.

Musically speaking the album hits hard when it does indeed “hit”, unfortunately it does so between some sluggish ballad parts that assuredly tells part of the tale but might disinterest some listeners. The need for patience arises by the third and fourth tracks as “Requiem For A Rose” and “I Remember” put the brakes on an otherwise great start. “She Writes” provides some light of day which only leads to being lulled back to sleep with the balladry of “Rainy” and the bi-polar “Lanterns Dance” which flip-flops between the Rock and ballad facades. This is the release’s biggest fault, this sluggish mid-section of tracks three through seven which might lose some avid Metal listeners.

Fortunately, if the listener can hang in there then they will be treated to seven tracks of masterful music beginning with track eight, “Betrayal”, which is a dark and broodingly heavy instrumental interpretation of what’s going on in the storyline at this point. “Morpheus”, which follows, is another slab of Progressive Metal that’ll have the listener completely forgetting about the earlier half of the CD. “Consider It” is a wonderful Melodic Rock piece with a catchy chorus of “Eric Martin-like proportions”! Thankfully, the album rides out on tracks that all score high on the likeability scale.

One other strong point worth mentioning is the vocal performances. It’s amazing that Vivien Lalu and company managed to wrangle up a set of vocalists that collectively sing within the same range thereby providing some stability and familiarity to the release. Temporal doesn’t sound like a release with different singers on many tracks, in fact to the uneducated listener they might not even tell the difference… thankfully all singers in question have a nice smooth, melodic tone.

Bottom line, even though Wolters and Sfogli provide some occasionally Metallic sounding inspirational guitar playing, these can’t make up for the rather mediocre balladry tracks in the opening half of the disc. To the listeners that can make it to track eight though, they’ll be glad they stayed on board as the last half of the disc, coupled with the first two tracks, make for a wonderful Progressive Metal outing… perhaps five mediocre tracks out of fourteen aren’t the worst odds?

Lineup

Vivien Lalu – Keyboards
Joop Wolters – Guitar
Matt Bissonette – Bass
Gregg Bissonette – Drums

Guest Musicians

Göran Edman – Vocals
Björn Jansson – Vocals on 9, 14
Henrik Båth – Vocals on 1, 5
Martin LeMar – Backing vocals on 5, 7
Marco Sfogli – Guest guitar solos on 1,2,5,7,11,12,13
Alex Argento – Guest keyboard solos on 1, 14
Gary Wehrkamp – Guest keyboard solo on 14
Virgil Donati – Drums on 8, 10, 14