Kopecky: Blood

Listening to Blood, the latest effort by Kopecky, I am reminded just how frustrating it is to have a great progressive rock band right here in Wisconsin that has never set foot in Madison. Kopecky hails from Racine yet they play outside the States while avoiding Madison, just a couple hours away, if that. Hopefully the plans of a certain former music rag editor will come to fruition and Madison will host a prog festival featuring the brothers Kopecky. Until then, I'll have to be content with CDs and jaunts east.

The band features Joe, William, and Paul Kopecky on guitars, bass, keys, & sitar, and drums, respectively. (There's a few commas for ya.) Formed in 1999, Blood is the group's 4th studio effort. Being an instrumental outfit, Kopecky has incorporated varied elements into their brand of heavy prog which kept things interesting and helped keep their music from drifting into mindless soloing. It didn't take me long to appreciate Serpentine Kaleidoscope, my first exposure to the band. My initial reaction was that they were sort of a cross between Djam Karet and Rush. They drew from the well of prog metal but also threw in sitar, Middle Eastern elements, and the occasional weird bit in a nod to experimental music. It turned out to be a great mix with solid playing, great melodies, and enough variety to keep me from missing vocals.

With Blood, the brothers have pared down to your standard power trio arsenal of guitar, bass, and drums. The smaller tonal palette gives the album a rawer, heavier sound, though the Kopecky approach remains intact. This is apparent from the opening "Garden of Immolation" with Joe's guitar alternating between a very sludgy tone ala John Petrucci (of Dream Theater) in "The Glass Prison" and a very dense Robert Fripp sound circa 1973. The song is an aural assault that deftly shifts from section to section over the course of 7+ minutes.

"Infernal Desire Machine" follows. Joe scratches at a melody allowing William's bass to meander as the song slowly builds up from a nice, shimmering melody into all it's infernal glory. At 4:58, it's tied for the shortest cut on the album and is a taut, compact summation of the Kopecky aesthetic with its dynamics and grinding guitar. "Moontown" and "Windows" see the band stretching out again. There are some great lyrical passages with a relatively clean-sounding guitar and William gives the bass a workout with some fusiony work on the fretboard to a percussive style like Les Claypool's. As a kid Joe listened to a lot of Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen and there are times when this influence is obvious, most notably when he tries to put lots of notes in a bar. But the bulk of "Windows" has Joe soloing with fewer notes and more sustain and it is absolutely wonderful. The song is probably the highlight of the album.

"Eden's Flow", the other song clocking in at just under five minutes, begins with great drum beat that sort of skips along before Paul really starts to hammer the skins. This section last only a bit more than a minute and, although it is reprised briefly, I wish it were longer. I liked the mood it created because it stood in contrast to pretty much everything that comes before it. Still, there's some great bass drum work here as well. The penultimate song is "The Red Path" that starts with some restrained guitar and cymbal work. It then suddenly kicks into gear with some hefty guitar work and the bass slithering underneath. This song is textbook Kopecky will slower and faster/heavier parts juxtaposed against one another.

The closer, "Opium", clocks in at nearly 13 minutes. An ominous chord hints at what will unfold. Drums enter as do some unintelligible voices, which are not so much singing as discordantly wailing. Everything here just hits an appropriately trippy note. This goes on for about half the song and the listener is left for several minutes listening to a rather creepy close. Lonely guitar echoes over an eldritch throb which sounds like a fanfare for the arrival of Cthulhu himself.

Blood has been getting a lot of spins in my CD player since I got it a week or so ago. Repeated listenings have proven rewarding but I still have reservations. My first criticism here is that for about half the time, the band is too eager to move from one section to another in the songs, especially when it means moving from a slower to amps turned up to 11. "The Red Path" and "Eden's Flow" are the most noticeable victims here. Unlike in, say, "Infernal Desire Machine", the arrangements in these songs don't let the slower parts develop enough for my taste. The build ups weren't long enough and the changes too abrupt. As I wrote above, I loved the drums at the opening of "Eden's Flow" with its open hi-hat work. It has such an open, carefree feel to it and I wished that the band had fleshed it out a bit more before abandoning it. My second gripe it that, while the sitar may have been used on only 1 song per album in the past, its addition added great variety. Not only with just the sound of the sitar itself, but in how Joe played against it. His playing took on more of a rhythm role which provided a breather, of sorts. Keyboards were never a huge part of the band's sound but the embellishments really fleshed things out for my ears. The absence of these instruments and, in my opinion, a more restrained role for the bass, has turned the band's sound towards a more guitar solo extravaganza direction. Thusly some great ensemble playing has been lost. I am thinking right now of "Magic Room" from Serpentine Kaleidoscope and how the guitar would begin a thought and then the bass and/or drums would finish it. Nobody is soloing and the whole is greater than the individual parts.

Despite the disappointments, Blood is a good album. There's some great guitar soloing, plenty of time changes, and William's bass playing is always a treat, even if it is underused. Hopefully the band will play Madison sometime this year.