| Band
Members: |
Pauly Henning Guitars, Bass, Keyboards |
Jody Ashworth, James LaBrie, Michael
Sadler, Matt cash, jill Gioia, maya Haddi, Vocals |
| The
Review |
I don’t think anyone could have predicted just how big
the world of heavy metal would become, nor how it would come
to form such a large sub-genre as prog metal. The foundation
for heavy metal music is quite simple really; it needs to
be loud, aggressive, and mostly uptempo. But as the saying
goes, “the devil is in the details,” and this is where prog-metal
makes a significant departure from plain old, straight ahead
metal music and all its permutations. And this is where we
introduce Henning Pauly and his new release entitled Babysteps.
***
With a fulltime job working at a commercial-music jingle
house, Pauly moonlights at his passion crafting prog-metal
that is clearly a notch above the standard fare. With a ton
of musical “book learning” behind him Pauly puts his ample
talents to work performing all the instruments here but calling
upon the likes of Jody Ashworth, James LaBrie, Matt Cash and
Michael Sadler to handle the vocals. Babysteps is Henning
Pauly’s seventh release if you count his other projects like
Chain and Frameshift. And like the others this is complex
prog-metal with plenty of notes flying around. The CD’s concept
follows the life of a professional athlete as he goes through
his rehabilitation after being consigned to a wheelchair,
hence the title Babysteps. Musically the CD’s hour and fifteen
minutes incorporate fifteen tracks of varying lengths, three
of which are just over seven-minutes and the longest being
a little over nine-minutes. Some of the shorter pieces are
more like instrumental bridges creating moods and drama. Sometimes
the vocalists use spoken passages to again reinforce the characters
traumatic internal conflict. Each of the voices performs a
character in the storyline and as such the music is devised
to reinforce the person’s place in the story, with some obviously
being angrier sounding than others. As a counterpoint to the
crunchy metal guitar Pauly uses a lot of piano throughout
the CD, in fact it is the most prevalent keyboard other than
a few organ pads here and there; it’s the piano, usually in
a solo mode that sets a kind of poignant tone for the pain
the hero is going through as well as a musical counterpoint
to the guitars. ***
I must say that prog metal is not my primary cup of tea,
but there is no denying the talent that is brought to bear
here on Babysteps. Henning Pauly has a considerable following
and I’m sure they will thoroughly enjoy Babysteps. If you
enjoy your progressive rock on the heavy guitar oriented side
then this is clearly a CD for you. ***
|
