STREAMING: A Liquid Landscape “The Unreachable”

To honor national prog day — yes, it really is 2.1.12 here in the United States, where we don’t mess up the date by transposing the month and day — Decibel was originally going to get Rush to perform Opeth covers in our offices, but logistics proved the event’s undoing. They were all up for it, believe us! We mean, can you imagine Rush doing “Forest of October” or “Devil’s Orchard”? We can.
To make up for our logistical oversight (not to mention way wide ambition), we nailed down Dutch prog metallers/rockers A Liquid Landscape. Having shared the stage Anathema (UK), Thrice (US) and Riverside (PL), it’s pretty evident to us, the quartet — guitarist Niels van Dam, bassist Robert van Dam, vocalist/guitarist Fons Herder and drummer Coen Speelman — think a bit differently from the norm. Perhaps more prog rock, without the mee-maw keyboards and ultra-weird, overcompensating song-stuff. Anyway, any band that is able to infuse a bit of melody and be smart musically, is prog to us.

Of course, random blurbs about random supposedly reflective things is always prog, so we’ll let the following A Liquid Landscape candid thought take you to the nearest Amsterdam “coffee house”: “Washed up, tired and staggering across a beach in the early hours of the morning. Somewhere in the twilight between desperation and surrender, there is still a glimmer of hope. That sense that everything will be alright, no matter what the odds are.”

** A Liquid Landscape’s new album, Nightingale Express, is out March 13, 2012 on Laser’s Edge Records. It’s available for pre-order HERE. And, no, Rush will never do in-office performances for anyone but us. Well, maybe they’ll visit Roadrunner’s offices in New York for a medley of “Tom Sawyer/Under the Weeping Moon/Valley of the Dolls”.