Tracklist

1. a philosophers suspicious tale
2. principles of transformation
3. the colored pencil heist
4. endless manicotti bar
5. sometimes goodbye takes forever
6. scary dad
7. seduccion del prototipo
8. the great dictator

Hello, today I will be reviewing Super String Theory’s album, ‘’Principles of Transformation’’.

From the get go the opening track ‘’A philosopher’s suspicious tale’’ has a strong progressive metal feel too it, with odd time signatures and ripping shred guitar, the song also has a good groove to it, with the rhythm section providing the catchiness, the lead guitar is fast shred with a nice harmonic minor feel.

The second track, ‘’Principles of transformation’’ surprises us in its intro, with its clean guitar and soothing melodies all whilst still retaining that progressive edge in the overall core structure of the music. The song goes heavy after a short while though, with its chaotic sounding time sigs and shred, the song varies between clean and distorted backing throughout the song. I like the transition of clean to distorted rhythm in this track, it creates a nice contrast.

To add yet more variation to this album, the third track, ‘’The colored pencil heist’’ has a very jazzy sound too it, with some tasty acoustic licks on top, reminding me of such guitarists like Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin.

As stated in my thoughts on the second track, I like how this album contrasts from some heavy songs to gentle, clean songs whilst retaining that progressive sound and shred guitar. Quite Dream Theatre reminiscent.

One of my favourite track’s is ‘’Scary Dad’’, the riffs have a great groove and the changes within the song are very interesting, chaotic playing – but in a good way. One moment it’s very heavy, then the other it goes into jazzy sounding clean backing chords. The lead guitar melodies are also quite catchy and with the mandatory shred moments of brilliance.

‘’Seduccion del Prototipo’’ is another track that reminds me of Al Di Meola, it has a very Latin sound to it, with its driving acoustic rhythm, and it’s very fast, harmonic minor style lead playing.

The album ends on a strong note with ‘’The Great Dictator’’ with its pummelling riffs and interesting distorted chords. I like how this song changes from heavy to melodic playing. This is probably my favourite track on the album.

Overall this is a very enjoyable album; definitely check it out if you’re a fan of progressive style shred guitar. The album is not just heavy throughout though, it has variation, which is definitely a strong point. At times it has a jazz fusion type sound and at points just a nice melodic clean sound, the Latin style of ‘’Seduccion del Prototipo’’ further adds to this albums variety, so I think this album can be enjoyed by more than just a progressive metal audience. Definitely recommended.

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