Band:	Failure Epics
Album:	Failure Epics
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	February 2012

01. Cleareyes
02. Soothsayer
03. A Reflection
04. We Are men
05. Riverbend pt.1
06. Riverbend pt.2

Minimalism is a really underrated quality sometimes. In fact, it's a quality that goes unnoticed until you hear an album like Failure Epics self titled album. Not a bad album from an undeniably talented musician. The problem lies in an attempt at beautiful tranquil moments being somewhat hampered by a little too much busyness behind the instruments.

It's a prog rock album. That really explains a lot about the downfalls of this album. Calm down! That isn't a statement about prog rock, but rather the pitfalls in this album are typical of a lot of second-rate prog. Every genre has it's extremely common downsides that almost every band in those respective genres will stumble through. In the case of Failure Epics, it's over-indulgence. It takes a classic melodic prog rock approach most obviously influenced by bands like Yes and King Crimson, but attempts to do more of everything. It goes from impressively intricate to frustratingly messy far too frequently.

This is all looking on the bad side of things, though. When it's not an overwhelming barrage of delicate melodies layered too deeply with some anti-climactic drum patterns, it's actually a pretty nifty album. Lot's of soft, yet dark melodic passages offer a lot in the way of atmosphere, while as a whole the album definitely has a very genuine, heartfelt feel to it.

As that one dude said about that other dude who played piano and shit "there's too many notes." It's a well thought out enough piece of music to be respected, but too frequently lacking in a bit of much needed minimalism to be considered a masterpiece.