Prog metal, now there's a challenging style. Challenging in many different ways... You can get totally soulless yet perfectly played stuff. Well, perfect by whose standards? By music theorists', perhaps. Then you can get pretty straight stuff (something that even someone who doesn't study music can listen to), but without any kind of hooks. They know the theory, they don't know how to compose good music. Then, there are bands who claim to be "progressive", but are a copycats of some acknowledged band. It is a tough genre...

Future Is Tomorrow (F.I.T. from now on) hail from Italy and 'Fit to Die (Part I)' is their first full length album. How well can they avoid those three major traps of prog metal genre? Better than many, but not totally. The band know their instruments well, but there are no egoistic performances to be found. The drummer gets "cheers" for his surprisingly intense work, as he does bang more instead of doing some weird drum porn. The vocalist is noticeable for his powerful voice (also his calmer delivery is very strong indeed), which reminds me of Tarot/Nightwish fella Marco Hietala mixed with Skid Row man Sebastian Bach, so it's for acquired taste, but really deserves "cheers", even though his quite big accent is so audible. The guitars are pretty choppy and hard for most of the time, and the solos are fantastic, so there goes another "cheers". And the bass is also well done, especially I like those Steve Harris moments, so "cheers". One thing that annoys me almost to the point of detonation is the typical and oh-so-boring use of synthesizers! Oh hell, why?! Typical synth mat, bleeps, lame orchestral arrangements or synthesized beats with preset sounds is what they are about. They do not add any atmosphere, but just succeed to annoy. Hey guys, is there a synthesizer-less version of the album available? I am not kidding. The church choir appearing throughout the album is real, so thumbs up for it.

The music is quite multifaceted. F.I.T. do not go as far as Pain Of Salvation for example, which is simply a good thing. F.I.T. stand somewhere close the centre of a triangle, that consists of Balance Of Power, Dream Theater and Vision Divine. More choppy prog metal and with some very tasty twin guitar moments, nice leads and aforementioned Steve Harris style bass work. There are some parts smelling of Stratovarius style power metal. F.I.T. sound personal enough, when listener forgets those damned synths. As this is prog metal, the compositions are long. Only three of them clock under six minutes. This turns out to be the stumbling-block for the band and the album, because sometimes it drifts into imperceptible zone, which means it goes in one ear and out the other. The story of the album tells about a dead man, who monitors the world of living during his funeral. The band haven't been able to make music work very well on the emotional level, because it does not raise any big emotions in me. It goes from heavy metal to calm atmospheric piano parts for example, but still does not extend to spheres where e.g. Ayreon go with their magnum opuses.

Sound-wise the album is very clear, but suffers from trebly production. It feels quite insipid, emotionless. When taking into account that the album tells a story (or part of it, at least), it is surprising that the lyrics aren't printed. There are just short Latin texts for every part of the story available.

The band set to work on a big task. It proved to be too big a task to nail down successfully. The compositions are simply too massive, and there is too much of superfluous material. However, good parts are amazing at times. During various listenings, the album has not proved to be a grower, at least not for me. Check out 'Dead [Requiem Aeternam]' and 'Fit to Die' to find the band at their best. On the other hand, the band are skilled, so let's see what they can do next time around.

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
10/21/2009 21:11