The January Tree

Having been tepidly appreciative of Deadsoul Tribe's sophomore effort, A Murder of Crows, I decided to pick up their junior release, The January Tree a few days ago and that was a great move if I do say so myself.

For me Deadsoul Tribe's strength is that they remind me of Tool, one of my favorite bands. They have a dark morose sound and lyrics, a similar disjointed, syncopated style, a heavy stop and go drum and guitar beat with unusual melodies, somewhat de-emphasizing the vocals for the sake of the strong instrumentation. That's not to say that, as a singer, Graves doesn't have his moments. He has a pleasant mid to high pitched voice and a decent style that together, with echo chambers and dual tracks, happens to compliment the music.

For those familiar with Tool, you know that the music is all but impossible to describe except in generalities, as is Deadsoul Tribe. The first six tracks from "Spiders And Flies" to "Toy Rockets" have a feel strongly reminiscent of Maynard James Keenan, either Tool or A Perfect Circle, except track five "The Coldest Day of Winter". "Spiders And Flies" and "The Love of Hate" feature heavy bass drums and a crunchy guitar throughout. "Sirens" starts with a little jazzy guitar intro, then settles in but finishes with a slow ethereal ending, on "Why" we have more crunchy guitars and heavy drums but it slows down in the middle and Graves is accompanied by an acoustic guitar building to a cresendo.

"Wings of Faith", my personal favorite, has a snappy medium fast beat but is sung at half speed. It also features at least one or two female background singers, a nice touch. "Toy Rockets" is similar to most of the songs except it features a flute, another nice touch.

While I'm not yet quite ready to describe, The January Tree as 'sensational', after only a few listens, it is nonetheless, a very strong effort, warranting a five star rating.

If you have never heard of these guys or know little of them, I suspect that is about to change!

Batmaz is ABSOLUTELY correct when he said that Devon is not only just a vocalist, but is a "modern poet" who hasn't been noticed by hardly anyone in the modern rock scene. I wish there was a way to put "Just Like a Timepiece" on pop radio in its entirety and chain people to their chair and force them to listen. After hearing even this ONE song's captivating melody and song structure, I bet people would wake up just a LITTLE BIT.

This entire album functions as a continuous whole, with one theme broken up into different yet similar components. If you listen to A Murder of Crows (DST's second album, for all those unfamiliar with it) you will see a similar theme presented in more of a raw sense. This album could almost be plugged right on the end of that album to make a continuos stream of hypnotic "music." By putting this in quotes, I mean that this is a modern ART creation that paints pictures in your head and entrances you with the lyrics. The line "Their vessels lined upon the shelves, yet empty every one" really spoke loudly to me in terms of actual theme of this disc.

In summary, this album is a must have for EVERYBODY, even the 'gangstas' and 'dance divas' This is an experiance that will open your eyes if you just give it a chance. This would probably be the top album release of the year in my opinion.

It's always a challenging task to follow up your previous album, especially if it was such a great success among the prog community and garnered a lot of critical acclaim on various webzines and magazines. A Murder of Crows was an awesome record and my curiousity was piqued when I heard Devon Graves had already started composing his third Dead Soul Tribe CD -- The January Tree.

The lyrics I mentioned in my subject line is the main chorus of the third track on the album, "The Love of Hate". I know this is a bizarre way of starting a review but I believe the melody line Devon Graves came up on this track may be one of his best in his entire career. No exaggeration here, I've heard (almost) everything he's done so far and I have to point out the vocal melody on this track is unbelievable. In fact 98% of the melodies he created here are amazing, you've never heard him sing the way he sings on The January Tree. This record is a logical continuation of the philosophical AMOC, but it has more character and a more homogeneous overall feel. Even though it may be too early to pass judgement yet, I think The January Tree is going to be my favourite DST of the three. I really enjoy it a lot.

Given the lyrics on this disc, to say that Devon Graves is merely a "lyricist" would be daft. Graves is a modern "poet" whose art has yet to be discovered by most rock/metal fans. What's more is his lyrics make a lot more sense and are more effective when heard within the context of the song. Devon Graves has always had the idea of singing soft melodies over really heavy riffs and he utilises this idea to the best of his advantage on The January Tree. About all the songs here are very riff-based, the kind of riffs that are played very much to the point but are available throughout the entire disc. What Devon does is find the soft vocal harmonies and melodies and sing them over these riffs creating a beautiful sense of contrast. There are songs here which feature Devon's most fragile vocal lines to date and they sound totally heartfelt to say the least.

The January Tree, at times, is a wonderfully easy album to enjoy. Maybe it's because I'm so used to the signature sound of DST and Devon's vocal delivery throughout the 10 years I've been listening to him, so my guess is that if you're a fan of AMOC and some of the later era Psychotic Waltz stuff, you're most probably going to find yourself digging this CD a lot. Unlike AMOC though, three of the songs on January Tree were co-written by Adel Moustafa and surprisingly these songs have brought a very different feel to the record. Besides the terrific album opener "Spiders and Flies", the fourth track "Why?" features a very structured yet natural and memorable guitar solo. Once again the chorus here is incredibly beautiful. "Wings of Faith" is another song with different textures. It contains interesting vocal harmonies, background samples, processed vocals and tribal drumming. "Toy Rockets" sees Devon carrying his Jethro Tull influence into the focus of the song with even more tribal rhythms and hypnotizing melodies.

The longest song "Just Like A Timepiece" also bears another importance. First released on Devon's 1993 solo album The Strange Mind of Buddy Lackey, the songwriting is credited as (Devon/Lackey) in the CD booklet. That put a smile on my face. The song is reworked and interpreted in a new way. A lot of PW-ish guitar riffs abound the composition with a subtle folk vibe going on underneath the melodies. The fragile piano on this track is side by side by Sabotage-era Black Sabbath riffs and Devon probably never sounded better. He sure has improved and matured greatly on The January Tree. Once again he sings, plays electric and acoustic guitar, bass, flute, keyboards, piano, and he produces. Adel Moustafa does the drum work. The concept and lyrical theme is explained both in the lyrics and on the band's official website, so go and have a look if you're interested.