Album Review: Vanden Plas - The Ghost Xperiment: Awakening

Concepts keep getting bigger, don't they? What started with making an album that told a story has now gotten to the point of creating universes where multiple albums are needed to flesh out the landscape. Vanden Plas have already done that with their two-part "Chronicles Of The Immortals", and are now doing it again with this record, which is the first of at least two parts telling a story about ghosts, psychology, and a bunch of other conceits that lyrics are never going to be able to fully capture. They also do this with an album containing only six songs, stretching out to be proggier than their last few outings.

Gone is the musical theater approach, and back is the prog metal. Unfortunately, this is done to promote a story about the paranormal, which is a bunch of hokum. I'm rather dismayed at the band's insistence on spending multiple albums telling stories about a bunch of bullshit. Oh well.

Vanden Plas is good at what they do. I know there are people who are devoted fans of prog metal who worship the ground they walk on more than most bands of their ilk, and I do get it. Compared to a lot of bands in the genre, they have a better ear for songcraft. They take the conventional formula, and do it with enough finesse and class to make prog metal almost feel beautiful, which isn't always what you would equate with it. It's a bit funny, though, that Vanden Plas is moving more towards prog while Dream Theater streamlined, and they wound up with very similar records this year.

The songs on this record are put together with a nod towards dynamics. They don't blaze through riffs one after the other, nor do they settle on a tempo and hammer it for the entire length. If there's a slightly technical riff, it will be followed in short order by something a bit heavier, or with more groove, breaking up the song into easily identifiable sections, and making good use of the run-times that inch up near the ten minute mark. When we talk about songwriting, this is one of the little details that lesser artists aren't able to master. It isn't enough to just have good ideas, you have to know how to put them together in a way that maximizes their impact. There's nuance to writing a great song.

I've always thought Vanden Plas works best when they use grand, sweeping melodies to give us a sound that feels suitably epic. That's exactly the feeling they establish with this record. The melodies on "Three Ghosts" and "Devil's Poetry" are the kind that move in just the right way. We don't get to hear that very often, even among some of the most celebrated prog metal. I have sadly come to learn that most musicians who get involved in prog either can't or won't pay attention to whether their songs play to all audiences. Vanden Plas' are longer, and they ask for the listeners attention, but there is a surface-level appeal that makes the investment worth it.

I'm not going to lie; I cringe at the spelling of the title, and wish I didn't have to hear lyrics about necromancers. I don't enjoy the concept of this concept album, but that doesn't change the fact that Vanden Plas has made a very good prog metal record. They are recycling their own formula a bit, but that's not a problem when it works. And it does here. This ghost experiment pays off.