The Stage | Advancing the Chords, Losing the Riffs

Introduction

So Hail wasn't exactly great. It sold well, the critics liked it, but hardcore fans and people with backgrounds in metal knew how bland it was. A7X needed something that would win everyone back. And that's... sort of what they did. Oh boy this isn't gonna go over well. Right now before anyone gets the wrong idea, I like this album. I do. It's a good rock album, with solid instrumentals and good production. It's good. But it's not the second coming of Ronnie James Dio people. It's not some amazing, perfect, impenetrable masterpiece that deserves to have every criticism shot down. It's been almost 4 years, it's time to look at it more critically people. And that's what I'm gonna do. This is The Stage.

Analysis

We start off with the best part of the album. Brooks Wackerman, a drummer who needs no introduction for any 90s kid. Bad Religion anyone? And he provides some of the best arrangements out of the entire band's career. But when we move up from the drums is where my "eh" senses start to tingle. First off, you can barely hear the bass guitar. Nothing new for A7X, but it's still boggling why Nightmare is the only album with a good volume for Johnny. Secondly, it wouldn't matter anyways because the basslines just sort of exist here. Nothing truly sticks out, he's taken a more downplayed role here than any other album. But I can see why, prominent bass guitar is more of a metal thing and The Stage... I'll get back to that.

The rhythm guitar is really where my problems center though. So the entire band and fans of this album love to talk about how the chords and chord progressions and whatnot are so much more interesting and unique and evolved here. There's just one problem that I think they forgot to account for. That's all lost on anyone who doesn't intently study music theory, what the rest of us hear is some of the most forgettable riffs Zacky has ever played. Almost nothing truly stands out here. I would be able to somewhat forgive this if those "interesting chord progressions" were something new and groundbreaking for the genre or the community as a whole, but no. It's the same stuff Rush has been doing for decades and the final riffs are essentially Coheed and Cambria except somehow less heavy. And that's just it. Even in their worst moments before this, A7X was always predominantly a metal band. Which meant the riffs had an inherent level of depth and heaviness that comes with writing metal riffs. That doesn't exist on this album, because they were more focused on writing "intellectual" music than writing metal music, which wouldn't be disappointing if it weren't for the hundreds of bands that do both flawlessly. I know I complain about HTTK, but I complain about the execution of that album, not the concept of a more riff-focused A7X. Syn's great as always, but I even feel like he gets less crazy here than on several other albums, though still infinitely more creative than on HTTK.

And then there's Matt's vocals. What happened in between albums. He's gone from his awesome aggressive HTTK voice to some of the most strained, nasally, and small sounding vocals he's ever done. The only thing that keeps them from being his worst ever are the lack of S/T's overused processing and that he at least doesn't sound like he has food in his mouth like on STST's cleans. The production is at least very good. For one main reason. IT HAS DYNAMIC RANGE!! Oh after 7 albums of Loudness War this blew me away to hear.

My bias for metal unfortunately makes me a lot more critical and nitpicky here. Nothing here is truly terrible, just very standard prog rock. It's a different variety of bland from HTTK. Where that album crafted dull versions of riffs done better by other bands, the riffs on TS aren't ripped off. They're written by A7X for sure, but a more mellowed out A7X. And I get it, bands change, but that change isn't always for the best. For every Shogun-level evolution there's a Siren Charms. Am I saying The Stage is that bad? Hell no (NOTHING IS AS BAD AS SIREN CHARMS. God I hate that album. Like I really hate it, did I mention that I hate it?), what I'm saying is it's something that loses a lot of what I loved A7X for. The heavy riffs, the gothic atmosphere, the aggressive vocals. I know this all sounds pretty negative, believe me it's not as bad as I might make it sound. The album is good. I just think it doesn't work as amazing as some people say if you've ever truly been exposed to prog rock and prog metal and see where all the ideas come from. The same way HTTK didn't bother metal newbies, TS doesn't bother prog newbies, and TS doesn't directly insult prog fans like HTTK did to metal fans, so it's a win as far as I'm concerned. I know I sound super negative, it's really not. Just think of my criticism here as being a bit "over-corrective" of the praise this album always gets. Combine my overly nit-picky analysis with the "it's the greatest thing evar!" opinion the sub has and in the middle you'd probably find how I actually feel about it.

Track by Track

The album manages to make a really good first impression with the title track. Opening with grand synths before guitar takes over and we enter a very COE-ish track. Fueled by one of the better riffs of the album and some of Matt's best vocals on it the song goes at this pace for a while, before having something I'd been missing from this band. A crazy bridge section! And the bridge section has bar none the best vocals of the album as Matt taps into vocal ranges that remind me a lot of the Rev's vocals from the S/T. Great song. Followed by another great song in "Paradigm". A very atmospheric metal track that crescendos through the verses to the chorus' and eventually leads to a very emotional finale. Best song on the album bar none if you ask me. And then "Sunny Disposition" enters and some problems start. The song opens with a very evil sounding riff, before going to a buildup section. Like it's getting ready for a heavy chorus or something. But no, it exists into a very soft chorus. And then repeats that same pattern. And the bridge doesn't do anything particularly interesting there. It's a good rock song, but it starts the formulaic-ness of the album. Having horns doesn't automatically make it some prog epic, it just makes it a hard rock song. With horns in the background. That said, the horns are cool and the chorus while unexpectedly soft is fairly memorably.

And then there's "God Damn". And, it has the best riff on the album. A great pace, heaviness, and darker melodies. The downside is that Matt's modern vocals just can't match. This song needed more HTTK-ish vocals. It really did. Next up is "Creating God". It's okay. A fairly standard hard rock song in structure with some good drumming, it doesn't stick with me though. Especially since the bridge is just the solo. No killer vocal parts or riffs. Just solo, then another verse and chorus. Get used to that here. Then we have "Angels". A ballad. Look, I don't hate every ballad in existence. I know it seems like it sometimes, I don't. But when this album has already had so much clean guitar and softer sounds already in Sunny D and Creating God, it doesn't stick out as much. And at that... it's not even a really badass ballad. It's just a typical clean guitar ballad. I mean it's the best ballad on the album by process of elimination, but it's not particularly interesting or epic. For what people consider such a proggy album, A7X has more technical and more epic ballads like "Seize The Day" and "I Won't See You Tonight".

But hey, speaking of disappointing ballads, "Simulation". This song sucks. It's the only song on the album IMO that is truly bad. The verses are cringy, the chorus is a worse Not Ready To Die, the bridge is just the solo and some spoken word, it's just bad. Thankfully the worst song is followed by one of the best. "Higher" is a song that really grew on me over time. The song isn't concerned with attempts to be taken as some sci-fi drug trip, it's just a badass hard rock song that has no problem with being it. It's also a case where some of the unorthodox instrumentation actually works to complement the riffs and leads. The drumming is great, the riff is nice, the leads are the best on the album except for Exist, etc. I still don't know if I would call Higher metal exactly because it still feels like there's something missing for that, but hey the song has a crazy intro and outro like songs on WTF and COE had, so what do I care? Alright, enough gushing over Higher. Now we have "Roman-" AGH. Another ballad, really? God even Nightmare's overabundance of ballads had ballads that sounded different. "Roman Sky" is, you guessed it, more clean guitar and no real interesting riffs or crazy parts, hell it barely has any drumming at all. It's better than Simulation by virtue of still being a decent song, but even Angels has a darker, more unique atmosphere. Even the song sounds done with itself since it sort of abruptly cuts off without much of a flowing outro to the next song. The best thing about the song is that it makes me like "Angels" more.

Then we come to "Fermi Paradox", probably the weirdest song on the album. It combined blast beats, black metal trem picking, and really soft singing. I mean, it's one of the few truly metal songs on the album due to the instrumentation. And the first half of the song is great. But the bridge is just the solo, and if any song needed a crazy bridge section it was this one. Finally, "Exist". For the first half, Exist is an absolute masterpiece. There's tons of heavy, technical, awesome riffing. Great leads, kickass drums, etc. Just a phenomenal instrumental. And then it gets interrupted by ANOTHER FREAKING BALLAD. Yeah, just more clean guitar strumming and soft vocals about the universe and whatnot. It's just Roman Sky Part II essentially. The sad thing is, the song picks up again after that, with fast drums, a really great synth track, and spoken word from Neil deGrasse Tyson. So if you took the clean ballad part out, maybe had like a minute of just clean instrumental before building up again, and just not had any Matt vocals at all, this could've been an epic instrumental finale.

And you know what, that about sums up the entire album. Every time I get invested in the heavier riffs, technical leads, and badass songs, a boring ballad or standard hard rock song comes to take that away. And the ironic thing is, the heavy songs are the ones that are ACTUALLY PROGGY. The crazy tempo changes in the title track, the atmospheric style of Paradigm, the technical riffs of Higher, the creative mish-mash of ideas in Fermi Paradox. Those are actually prog metal styles. Meanwhile stuff like Creating God is just verse-chorus repeated three times with one farily standard solo thrown in, 3 songs are just ballads that do nothing new or interesting with that style, and stuff like Sunny D and Exist get completely confused in what they want to be. But.. Sunny D has horns in it. THAT MUST EQUAL PROG GENIUS. I'm sorry, but I don't see it. What makes this album such a prog epic to so many people? And before you just go "well you just don't get it because you're a closed minded elitist who wouldn't accept true masterpiece chord progressions, you just didn't listen hard enough", screw that. I listen to plenty of prog rock and prog metal bands. Rush is one of my favorite bands of all time, I adore Coheed and Cambria, I love Opeth and Dream Theater and Queensryche and all that. I can hear the interesting, technical, and unique styles in those bands. Last time I checked those bands had interesting bridge sections, and intros and outros, and didn't interrupt every two songs with a ballad. And you know what, sure maybe I didn't "listen hard enough for the chord progressions", but guess what. I'm not a music major. I'm not someone who studies music, I'm someone who tries to enjoy music. So no, I really don't care if The Wicked End doesn't have the "intellectual genius chords" of Roman Sky or whatever, the former has more technical riffs, crazier and more intricate structures that sound epic and grandiose, and is a far more memorable song. In fact I'd argue the second half of COE is closer to the prog metal bands I mentioned than TS is.

Ranking:

1. Paradigm - 10/10
2. The Stage - 9.5/10
3. Higher - 9/10
4. God Damn - 8.5/10
5. Fermi Paradox - 8/10
6. Exist (Would jump up to No 2 if it weren't for the ballad) - 8/10
7. Sunny D - 7/10
8. Angels - 6.5/10
9. Creating God - 6/10
10. Roman Sky - 6/10
11. Simulation - 3/10

Conclusion

The worst part is, I don't hate TS. It would be so much easier to express myself if I hated it. I don't. I have almost no leaning on it either way. Because for every song that I bitch about as boring or soft, there is a song like "Higher" or "Paradigm" that amazes me with true atmosphere, technicality, and actual heavy riffing. The album has the same issue Nightmare did, half of it is heavy and half of it is soft. The difference is the heavier stuff on Nightmare was even heavier and more memorable than the heavy stuff here, and the softer stuff was way more memorable and epic-sounding than the soft stuff here. The Stage is a worse Nightmare, and yeah that doesn't say much when Nightmare is fantastic, but it does add to some disappointment. It's the same mistakes but even worse. And that's really the way I feel about The Stage. It's a perfectly good album, there's only really one song worse than "okay". But for how much the album was hyped up by the fans, how much the band touted it's intellectual glory, and especially for how much I liked it when it came out (Because I did love this album when it came out. I claimed that Classic A7X was back and that this was like their third best album. But where most A7X albums get better over time, this one got worse), it is just damn disappointing. 7.5/10.

Well, it was nice knowing y'all. I'm just anticipating that I'll be murdered and/or banned within a week of posting this.