Welcome to the meandering musical insights of Aaron Joy (me!), formerly known as the Roman Midnight Music Blog. Here you'll find nearly 750 reviews of CDs & DVDs of rock & metal in all its variations, mainstream & indie, good & bad, U.S. & foreign. A new review every Monday.

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December 19, 2011

Abnormal Thought Patterns ~ Abnormal Thought Patterns (aka debut) (EP) (album review) ... Nerve damage might happen!


Style: heavy metal, prog-rock, instrumental
Label: Cynnormal Lab Recordings
Year: 2011
Home: California

Members: Jasun Tipon ~ guitars/keyboards
Troy Tipton ~ bass
Mike Guy ~ drums
An in instrumental heavy prog-metal onslaught of the Dream Theater & Dragonforce variety comes out of the self-titled debut from ATP, a side project of all but the vocalist of the prog band Zero Hour. Blistering playing of the highest caliber with the highlight being that this isn't your traditional dominating lead guitar over a rhythm section set-up but a give & take of sounds, instruments, leads & rhythms right down to the bass only "Ulnar Nerve Damage". So often a lead instrument dominates an instrumental group while the rest of the band chug away at a dry rhythm but highly textured layers & changes are the key words at play here. Everyone gets a chance to shine & push the band forward for a moment in the same way that Dream Theater or even the Grateful Dead work. Take notice, stereo speakers are absolutely necessary. The one problem is that the music is, obviously, wandering & though the peaks are obvious it sometimes feels like a vocal or some other kick is needed to up the notch before the peak fades away into a rhythmic cycle losing the climax. Also, with instrumental music comes the typical problem that it's easy to find your attention wandering with the songs tending to blend together losing their distinctiveness.

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