In Motion
Thriving Force

Thriving Force is the first album by the In Motion moniker; it is another project by the buys man Tom Tee who appears with many bands. Last year he did Entering Polaris that was a power progressive album in the vein of bands like Eldritch or DGM, this is a more extreme progressive expression with thrash and death metal stylings. Progressive stuff is built around fresh ideas and stuff and already when I read about Tee’s two monikers I wondered why he didn’t mix those ideas with the power and the extreme in one more dynamic idea. But I guess it is for him like for many others that he is locked in categorising according to format, something that limits creativity and the ideas for progressive music. I am not sure that Tee is that much of a progressive thinker, Entering Polaris was far from the best of the power progressive so how about this one?

It is progressive metal with touches of the extreme like the death metal and the thrash metal genres. Some aggressive vocals but mixed with clean ones and we do get some saxophone parts towards the end. It is quite a complex album, it feels like he is going for complexity rather than focusing on the songs. The album feels a little bit fragmented, incoherent possibly. The sound is good though and I like the production, but it is almost always good when Mularoni handles knobs and buttons. When I listened to this album I never registered that there were that many vocalists, either the album isn’t melodic enough to create a strong dynamic between the vocalists, or perhaps the vocalists are too similar as well. I think the use of many vocalists can be done better than it is done on this album. The album is a bit long as well, could have been shorter I think.

I think that this album is good, there are some moments that are quite wonderful and especially the end of the album rocks a lot. The problem just is that there are also parts that just try to be complex and it seems as though Tee just makes complex stuff and then crams it into songs, like the focus is on being progressive rather than making really great songs. I think this album takes off when Greg Rosetti comes in and plays some brilliant saxophone, that’s the best part of the album, the ending of the long penultimate song and the last one are really good. The other songs are quite good but they feel unnecessarily complex and lacks flow and energy, meaning that the album ends up being mostly alright with some really great moments and not a fantastic album.

Tee certainly has some ideas and skills; the album is complex and well performed. The problem is that it lacks great songs and it feels a bit overworked, I think this album should have gone more for dynamics and less on complexity. Perhaps they should have taken the best elements from the Entering Polaris album and this one and combined them into something really exciting; there is certainly stuff that is good enough for that to work. I would say that this album is good, it ends in a great way, but it is ultimately not really a standout release.

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