Solipsistic Nominated for Album of the Year Award for 2013 on PerfectProg.com

As surreal as this may sound to me it’s actually real, but what’s even more surprising is the result (so far).

PerfectProg.com has picked Semantic Saturation among only 11 other bands who released albums in 2013, big names like Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Riverside and Haken.

Voting is now open, and you can cast your vote here, if you think Solipsistic deserves your vote of course. And currently Semantic Saturation is battling Fates Warning for the first spot. Oh! By the way, you can vote more than once.

I’m absolutely speechless to be nominated among monsters of prog, and I’m even more dumbstruck by the response.
Thank you PerfectProg and thanks to everyone who voted!

Album of the Year Award 2013
Album of the Year Award 2013

Definition of Prog

One of my fans Andrew Grabowska is writing a speech about progressive rock and metal for his class, he chose me as his source and I’m quite honored.

He wanted answers to some of his questions:

  1. Why do you listen to/enjoy progressive metal and rock?
  2. Why did you chose to write and play it?
  3. Is there anything else you think is important about progressive rock and metal in comparison to other genres?

Well, below was my reply.

I started playing guitar when I was 15, and we played and covered a diversity of metal songs from different bands with my previous band Nu.Clear.Dawn.

At some point I was almost finding heavy metal sounding a bit boring to me, specially the standard song structures, verse chorus verse chorus solo chorus, also the regular guitar chords. I mean don’t get me wrong here, there are a lot of great metal bands out there that I enjoyed playing and listening to and still do sometimes, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Scorpions, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Iced Earth.. The is pretty much endless but still something was missing for me, perhaps the fun factor.

When I first got into prog, it was mostly Dream Theater and Rush that I listened to, and what got me into Dream Theater was Pink Floyd, when Dream Theater covered for Pink Floyd in A Change of Seasons, and how I got into Pink Floyd is quite the story.

Now why do I enjoy listening to prog? The song structures are different, sometimes there’s no chorus at all, sometimes very short lyrics, sometimes long intros, so there’s always the element of surprise, the music is diverse as well, different melodies, different moods, different builds in one track, odd time signatures, and of course some tracks are long which allows for instrumental sections, I just love how everyone in the band could get to solo at some point, in the end the band is not only the singer and then the rest of the band. It’s the singer, the guitarist, the drummer, the bassist, and everyone has their moment to shine.

It pretty much goes the same when it comes to writing and playing progressive music, plus, playing progressive rock is a lot of fun it’s almost like a video game, as a guitarist your left hand and fingers need to move around and hit the right notes on the fretboard while your brain is getting ready to play the next part in the song which is completely a new section, and it keeps progressing!
The chords sound a lot wider, jazzy, each position gives you a different mood, unlike the regular power chord that’s pretty much what every metal song is made of, why play the same four boring chords over and over and wait for the song to be over?

The same applies to everyone else in the band, the drummer has to remember all these odd time signatures and not mess up, and that’s where the fun is. Playing 4/4 time signature gets very old specially for a drummer. When you’re playing a progressive song you have to keep going, the band keeps going, the song keeps going and the melodies and harmonies unite to create an epic song. If you mess up you’re back to the last checkpoint, and keep practicing until you can play the whole thing in one shot, like a pro!

A lot of people think that playing prog is very hard. I almost thought the same, before I first picked up my guitar and tried to play a Dream Theater song, lucky for me I had the transcribed notes and guitar tabs for the song, so I started to learn the parts and I was surprised how extremely easy and fun some sections were to play, despite how difficult they sounded. (Check out guitar tabs and jam tracks from Solipsistic)

You don’t have to be a highly technical musician to play progressive rock or progressive metal, and all new prog bands are missing the point nowadays, they put everything they know in one song, like showing off their muscles.

Music is NOT a race, music is NOT a competition, music is art.

Now tell me why do YOU like prog?

Shant

12 Years Ago Today

I was eagerly waiting the release of Dream Theater’s live album from their evening at the Radio City Music Hall in New York which was shot on August 30, 2000. The album title and release date were announced months ago.

September 11, 2001
A couple of hours after my brain started computing the unfortunate events of 9/11 and the great turmoil in the United States I found myself even more dumbstruck when I remembered the cover and title of Dream Theater’s live album that was set to be released the same morning, with the twin towers engulfed in flames on a burning apple on its cover and the title that says “Live Scenes From New York”.
Definitely one of the greatest What the Fuck moments in my life.

Dream Theater - Live Scenes From New York
Dream Theater – Live Scenes From New York

The album was released the same morning, September 11, 2001 and was pulled off the shelves right away after the tragedy, to be released later with a different album cover.

Some stores still sold copies with the original cover in the US and worldwide, and those remain a collector’s item. I count myself lucky to own one of the few copies sold.

 

Solipsistic Reviewed on Danger Dog

Joel Rittberg from “Danger Dog Music Reviews” published a review about Solipsistic yesterday July 29, 2013. Joel loved the album so much he gave it a score of 5 out of 5!

Here’s the full review.

Solipsistic Album Cover

Semantic Saturation: Solipsistic
Instrumental Progressive Rock/Metal
5.0/5.0
Website Facebook
by Joel Rittberg, 07.29.2013

Semantic Saturation is the project of Shant Hagopian. He is a guitarist from Canada, who has played with other musicians throughout other parts of the world. What we have here is his self-produced debut.

Shant Hagopian (guitars)
Shant Hagopian, guitarist

Ambivalence starts off this disc, with a very heavy groove riff, that leads into an awesome melodic lead, that becomes an instrumental version of a verse. The entire song builds upon this melody, and each time leads itself into a new part of this six minute plus opener. Make Believe, shows off Shant’s amazing melodic songwriting skills. This song feels part-Rush, part-Dream Theater in its ability to change tempos. A great keyboard/guitar trade off at the two and a half minute mark, showcases the extremely talented Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater and many others) on keyboards. Sherinian and Shant go at each other, like its a heavyweight boxing fight, trading blows.

Lost and Found Insanity has a very cool keyboard melody that repeats throughout this intro, that reminds me of an old eight-bit video game. With a very warm guitar lead that joins the song a minute in. Around the minute and a half mark, Shant shows you his project is not about how fast he can play, but how great of a songwriter he truly is. The next song Stardust shares the same common melodic sensibilities as Lost and Found Insanity. Blessing in Disguise will remind listeners of John Petrucci from Dream Theater, especially the 2000, Metropolis Part 2, Scenes From A Memory. Its a truly beautiful melodic piece of instrumental progressive rock. The last twenty seconds again, showcases his idea of less is more, substance over quantity of notes played.

Armchair Activist, has a very Surfing with the Alien Satriani meets Passion and Warfare-era Steve Vai, a solid rocker, that showcases Shant’s abilities. This is probably the most technical song on the disc so far in my opinion and it also showcases a short break between drummer Virgil Donati and bassist Ric Fierabracci. Point of Singularity is a beautiful clean guitar and atmospheric keyboard piece that introduces a melodic guitar solo near the last minute of the song, that takes the song to new heights. This song would not be far out of place in an old sci-fi movie, with its keyboard tones.

Time Is An Illusion, is another masterpiece like Make Believe, without writing the same song twice. The last song, What if We All Stop, is the only song that features vocals. Those vocals are provided by the very talented Andy Kurtz of the German band, Vanden Plas. The open features a beautiful melody with Kurtz’s vocals coming in. The song turns into a full on prog-a-thon halfway through, and its definitely a welcome addition, to the instrumental tracks before it.

Solipsistic is an amazing piece of art. It’s a journey of musical emotions that reaches amazing heights, that brings us back down to earth when its ready too, not any sooner. Easily recommended for fans of Derek Sherinian’s music, or for those who appreciate instrumental guitar music, that isn’t about how fast you can play through every song.

source: http://www.dangerdog.com/2013-music-reviews/semantic-saturation-solipsistic.php

Top 10 Favorite Albums

So I have finally decided to complete the list of my favorite albums and publish it. I’m gonna have to limit myself to 10 albums only, otherwise this list can grow quite long.

So here are my top 10 favorite albums in no particular order.
Post your top personal 10 in the comments below.

Wish You Were Here album cover
Wish You Were Here

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
As a person who grew up listening to every Pink Floyd record, I cannot permit myself to choose a single Pink Floyd album as my only favorite record. But for the sake of compiling this list I had to torture myself and after numerous debates I had to settle down with the album ‘Wish You Were Here’. So there you have it, I’m still going to say this is not my only favorite Pink Floyd album.

Images and Words album cover
Images and Words

Images and Words – Dream Theater
If I had said “all time favorite records” instead of albums in the title, I would’ve went with ‘A Change of Seasons’, but because this record is considered an EP I can easily pick ‘Images and Words’ as my favorite Dream Theater album, specially knowing that ‘A Change of Seasons’ was actually written in the same era. I must admit that I’ve listened to ‘Images and Words’ continuously during three consecutive months when I first discovered it.

Moving Pictures album cover
Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures – Rush
Can I also pick ‘Signals’ and ‘2112’ ? No ? Then I guess I’ll go with ‘Moving Pictures’, YYZ does it for me. The song is also tied to many memories and the many times we enjoyed playing it live and during jam sessions with my previous band Nu.Clear.Dawn. As a Canadian, I feel proud to have given the world Rush, to balance out all those embarrassing travesties the country produced in the recent years.

The Human Equation album cover
The Human Equation

The Human Equation – Ayreon
As if James LaBrie singing on another Arjen Lucassen epic double-album progressive rock opera was not enough, Mikael ??kerfeldt of Opeth makes this record easily one of my favorites of all time. Some of the songs like Mystery still sends multiple shivers down my spine.

Souvenirs album cover
Souvenirs

Souvenirs – The Gathering
Anneke van Giersbergen [period]
To this day I haven’t heard any other female voice in the rock genre on this planet that can beat Anneke’s magical, mysterious, tender and passionate vocal cords. Not only with The Gathering, but every time I listen to her latest solo album ‘Everything is Changing’ I feel complete satisfaction and enjoy every millisecond of her presence. And I really hope that I get the chance to work with her one day. (hint hint)

Remedy Lane album cover
Remedy Lane

Remedy Lane – Pain of Salvation
These guys had a huge influence on me, although not apparent in the Nu.Clear.Dawn record, they continuously inspire me with their lyrics, compositions, power of will and determination.??Daniel Gildenl??w is the Roger Waters and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd in one body.

In Absentia album cover
In Absentia

In Absentia – Porcupine Tree
I cannot keep this record away for longer than a couple of weeks. I just can’t get enough of it. Blackest Eyes,??Trains,??The Sound of Muzak, the instrumental Wedding Nails, the closing track Collapse the Light Into Earth, enough said ? I have to also admit that I had one of the most amazing concert experiences when I saw the band live during the ‘Tour of a Blank Planet’, it was an intimate venue in Montreal, the sound was amazing, the crowd were amazing, and my spot was amazing as well.

Beyond Daylight album cover
Beyond Daylight

Beyond Daylight – Vanden Plas
An absolute masterpiece, melodic, heavy and addictive. Andy’s voice is an absolute wonder, the guitar work by Stefan Lill is spectacular. I consider myself very lucky having had the chance to share the stage with Vanden Plas in Turkey back in 2004, it was an experience I will never forget. And I feel extremely honored to have Andy as a special guest on ‘Solipsistic’.

Apostrophe album cover
Apostrophe

Apostrophe – Frank Zappa
The father of prog. The mother of invention.??Great googly moogly.
The humor, the wacky sounds, and sometimes pointless lyrics are what we are missing today. Although I still hear a lot of Zappa in all of Steve Vai’s records but I still think that’s not enough to fill the shirt of the muffin man with dried muffin remnants, and I’m honestly not a fan of cupcakes.

Experiments in Mass Appeal album cover
Experiments in Mass Appeal

Experiments in Mass Appeal – Frost*
Since I have limited myself to only 10 albums for this list I had to pick one between, Symphony X, Frost, Steve Vai and others. ‘Experiments in Mass Appeal’ is a wonderful mix of melodic and proggy themes. The album (contrary to the cover) is just too colorful and sweet and makes me shoot colorful rainbows from my ears while riding a pink flying unicorn. Ok well, may be that was a bit too much.

So what’s your top 10 ?