There‘s a new prog band called Dream The Electric Sleep and in early 2011 they released their debut album Lost And Gone Forever. The band was formed in 2009 as a trio, Matt Page (Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards), Joey Waters (Drums, Vocals) and Chris Tackett (Bass). The trio creates a body of music, that is usually achieved by four or more musicians. Also a very ambitious debut to boot.
Lost And Gone Forever is a concept album rooted theme wise in Americana. It tells the story of a coal miner and his wife as they live in a lifestyle that isn’t always fruitful. I won’t go into any details because it’s something best discovered by the listener. The music is a mixed bag of various styles from an acoustic to electric guitar driven as well as styles ranging from 70s Art Rock to Modern Progressive Rock.
From the bombastic opening title track, “Lost and Gone Forever” (6:28) to the somber, reflective closing track “What Will Be” (3:52), you’re taken through various emotions with the instrumentation as well as the lyrics. Every song on the album has very memorable vocals and instrumentation. One thing is the vocals sound nothing like what most Progressive Rock of today. To me that sets the band ahead of most of the other new(er) bands.
My advice is to listen to the entire album from start to finish to get the themes and concepts. In some ways, mostly thematic, DTES treads ground that Echolyn covered on Mei. But DTES seems to be more on a personal level.
I feel safe in saying that the Progressive Rock genre is alive and well with DTES and their debut album, Lost And Gone Forever. This has quickly become one of my top 50 favorite new releases of 2011, which gets my highest recommendation with a buy ASAP! I can’t wait for what DTES does in the (near) future.
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on January 10th, 2012
