I was looking forward to this album for sometime from Portuguese prog metallers Factory of Dreams after listening to one song which I thought held a lot of potential. After waiting for several weeks, I finally received the full length A Strange Utopia, upon listening to it in its entirety a few times, I can say that I am disappointed with the end result. A Strange Utopia is a mess of epic proportions.

The reason I had set my sights so high with this release was because of the epic feel you get from it, as you do from a project such as Ayreon with boatloads of synthesized sounds and harmonies over top of your traditional rock. This album was imagined to be a grand undertaking of symphonic wonderment, but the result is a cluttered mish mash of ideas that are never fully explored.

Ayreon, as an example is quite apt in my opinion, because all the things Ayreon has exceeded in accomplishing are the very areas that Factory of Dreams are inept at bringing to the listener. The first and biggest issue I have with A Strange Utopia is the flagrant confusing electronic music throughout every song on the album. Each song starts off with the voice of Jessica Lehto in conjunction with the instrumental and electronic contributions of Hugo Flores, which often start off quite well, but without hesitation, almost every song delves into what literally sounds like the track you had been listening to has been interlaced with 2 other synthesized tracks creating a nightmarishly painful concoction that I can only imagine was intentionally done to sound more “progressive”, or, was just the result of a horrible production accident that claimed the lives of many sets of ears in the process. If you can’t synthesize music to, at the very least, stay on beat (even poly-rhythms are employed while still maintaining a time signature that allows for a song to maintain fluidity), then you shouldn’t use them at all. The funny thing is, Hugo’s instrumental portions of the album are good, but they are ultimately overshadowed by the abhorrent use of electronic music.

Secondly is the voice of Jessica Lehto. Jessica is acceptable I suppose, but she is sooo very wrong for this type of music. She is no where near operatic, and often tries to hit notes that are out of her range, which just instantly sucks the passion out of a song that was built around having an incredible female vocalist. The epic qualities that were intended to be the result of A Strange Utopia are nowhere to be found, and if a concept that large fails, then so does everything else.

BLASPHEMY!

Similar Artists: After Forever, Leaves Eyes, Ayreon

1.    Voyage To Utopia
2.    The Weight of The World
3.    Inner Station
4.    Sonic Sensations
5.    The Road Around Saturn
6.    Garden Of All Seasons
7.    Dark Utopia
8.    Vacation In Venus
9.    Chaotic Order
10.    Slow Motion World
11.    Destructible Destruction
12.    E-Motions
13.    Broken (Bonus Track)
14.    The Weight Of the World (Bonus Track)

Hugo Flores – Guitars, Synthesizers, Percussion, Other Instruments
Jessica Lehto – Vocals

ProgRock Records

http://www.strangeutopia.com/

http://www.myspace.com/projectcreation

Review by CODY