FRANK X – The Project: Earth review

 FRANK X – The Project: Earth

Independent

https://www.reverbnation.com/frankx7

FRANK X come from Canada which, by the way, is a country that most of the times has to give something interesting in heavy metal. Francois, the musician that is behind this project is a multi talented person since he has studied music and in specific how to create score music (keep that in mind), but he also has directed and acted in some films and of course did their soundtrack. This creative mind is also a fan of heavy metal and in this release which I will present to you here he combines all his above mentioned talents to create a concept story that even the Monty Pythons or Douglas Adams would envy…

THE COVER: The cover of this album depicts exactly the main theme of the concept story. You can see a demonic figure who is the prince of darkness (not Ozzy the other one) who holds in his hand Earth and he is ready to eat it. It is a cover you will understand even better when you listen to the album.

MUSICAL STYLE:  As I mentioned above the album is a concept story and deals with the creation of earth and humans and how Lucifer is involved in the whole business. The story is really very different from the one we know from the Bible. Between the songs there are short dialogues which I have enjoyed a lot because they are clever and given with humor and this is an element that makes you listen to the whole album with the same interest as you watch a good movie. Musically now the band’s sound balances between modern and traditional metal. The guitars are down tuned and there are a lot of grooves here and of course the whole album is dominated by a thrash metal mood. I can’t say, though, that this is a thrash metal album since there is a lot more here. You can find traditional metal touches and there are times that the band enters in the fields of symphonic metal in order to give to the whole album this movie feeling that I have mentioned to you above. It is really an album with variety and lots of musical elements which don’t bore the listener, but help him/her to follow easily the interesting concept story.

CONCLUSION: This album is an interesting release and of course it is not something that you have listened to many times before. The music and the concept story are well combined and performed and this works beneficially for the album which can hold the interest of the listener from the start till the end. It is obvious that a lot of work has been done here and this is a release that demands your full attention in order to enjoy it. I think that FRANK X gives us the true essence of what we should consider progressive metal.

Nick “Verkaim” Parastatidis