Year : 2013
Style : Progressive Metal , Power Metal
Country : Italy
Audio : 320 kbps + all scans
Size : 132 mb
Bio:
DGM ("Diego, Gianfranco and Maurizio", after the founding members) is an Italian Progressive metal band. Over the course of the bands history they have had numerous line-up changes, with no original members in bands current line up and 8 previous members since 1994.DGM formed in 1994 as a complete instrumental band. The original line-up featured Diego Reali (guitar), Maurizio Pariotti (keyboards) and Gianfranco Tassella (drums) and after one year only Marco Marchiori (bass) joined the band. The live acts become now very frequent, and DGM takes part of the Rock innovation" festival, where the band arrived 2nd on 48 band. During this period the band starts working on their first official release, the self-produced miniCD 'Random Access Zone' in which appears the just-recruited superb vocalist, Luciano Regoli, former with several seminal Italian bands of the seventies, like "Raccomandata con Ricevuta di Ritorno", "Ritratto di Dorian Gray", "Samadhy". So he will be able to form his own personal style, mixing his "seventies mark" with the power vein of the band. The miniCD obtains a very high response in the whole power-speed metal scene and so the guys decide to produce their first full-length album. In the summer of '97, the band complete 'Change Direction', that will be out on November of the same year. The album receives great responses practically everywhere, not only in Italy but also in Germany, Finland, Denmark, etc. and the band starts an Italian tour that will occupy their time during the first part of '98, playing in Rome, Milan, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Bergamo... In September '98 DGM is back and focus its attention on the material for the comeback album. In this period, long-time partner Gianfranco and the band decide to part company. The split is pretty amicable and that's the reason why Gianfranco willingly accepts to collaborate as sound engineer, together with Daniele Conte for the recording sessions of the new album. New drummer is Fabio Costantino, taken from the death band Carnal Rapthor. DGM enter the studio in January '99 where they will stay 'til the end of February. Coming out, they take with them the sounds that will form their incredible second album, titled 'Wings Of Time' (Top album on the Italian magazines "Metal Shock ", "Flash" and "Metal hammer"). In Japan the CD sold over 4000 copies in the first 10 days of selling. The band was also contacted by BURRN! for an exclusive interview.During the 2000 there were many changes in the DGM Line-up; after years of cooperation DGM and Luciano Regoli decided to terminate their collaboration in a friendly way as the same for Marco Marchiori. Before the release of their fourth studio album Titta Tani joined the band, becoming the new DGM singer after Luciano Regoli.'Dreamland' saw the light in December 2001. This album obtained a great success in Italy and foreigner countries.In Springtime DGM starts to watch out for a new bass player and Andrea Arcangeli (River of Change and Concept) became the new DGM bassist in the late 2001. Many Italian dates follow the release of 'Dreamland' with the refreshed Line up and an excellent response from the Italian guys.New splits were at the door… Unfortunately after nine years of friendship Maurizio Pariotti decided to leave the band for personal reasons. With this album DGM were finally free from Elevate Records's "hands of doom" and a few months later - took the Italian musicians under their wings, so begun a new contract with Scarlet and the fundaments for a new album with the new Keyboards player Fabio Sanges (Abstracta). In the meantime DGM singer Titta Tani joined as official drummer (!!!) 2 BIG bands linked with a common taste for "horror"… the US splatter-masters Necrophagia and Daemonia, the new project of the Italian living legend Claudio Simonetti, ex-Goblin founder and writer of the most famous Dario Argento movies-soundtracks.New album "Hidden Place" is finally ready, recorded in Italy with the help of Giuseppe Orlando (Novembre) and mastered at Mastring Room/Sweden (In Flames, Soilwork, Meshuggah). This is the best DGM album and displays their best songwriting ever mixing power, aggression, class, melody and technique! Already licensed to Japanese label Marquee/Avalon this album is a new step for DGM career that will take a higher point next June at the Gods of Metal Festival where the band will play together with Whitesnake, Queensryche, Motorhead, Saxon, Destrucyion, Angra and many other metal legends.
Album:
Several bands have trouble with lineup changes. The Italian Power/Progressive metal group DGM definitely falls into that category. The band after all was named by the initials of the three founding members of the band, none of which have been in the band in 2006. Early DGM material was very reminiscent of early Dream Theater, technical proficiency, extremely clean instrumentation and vocals, and stereotypical life affirming progressive metal lyrics. Around the band's sixth and seventh albums there had been a noticeable shift in style to a heavier, much more distorted and aggressive brand of progressive metal. I personally wasn't initially a very big fan of it, especially after a switch in vocalists to relatively unknown vocalist Mark Basile, but my opinions recently have drastically changed. After seeing their set at ProgPower USA a couple years back I had sort of place the band in the category of those that I wasn't necessarily excited about whatever they choose to do in the future. I felt they were a good band, just not that memorable anymore. I couldn't have been more wrong.With their 8th studio album, Momentum, DGM has done just that, rebuilt back the momentum that I felt that had lost over the past couple of albums. They sound extremely refreshed and full of new ideas, not to mention some amazing guest musicians in Symphony X frontman Russell Allen and Pagan's Mind guitarist Jorn Viggo Loftstad.The opening track, Reason, starts off very intense and aggressive. This definitely sounds like something Symphony X would have done very early in their career. One of the opening riffs comes off sounding like a much heavier version of the beginning guitar riff to Dream Theater's song New Millenium as well, very nice groove, yet still quite intense. The vocals to this are absolutely amazing. It has an incredible blend of Russell and Mark's voices together. In the nearly 4 years in between DGM's albums it becomes very apparently really early on here that Mark has developed a significant amount of more power to his voice. There are times where you can't tell the difference between him and Russell Allen, who has obviously been a vocal powerhouse for quite some time. The guitar solo to Reason is something I wish more bands would do. Solos switched off between guitars and keyboards only to come together to a memorable melody at the end of it. Dream Theater used to do it a lot. I'm glad to see DGM is starting to do it as well. Because of this Reason is probably my personal favorite song on the album.The second track Trust takes them back to the roots of power metal. Memorable guitar into groove that makes you want to headbang. Not overly complex, yet gets your feet tapping. Reminds me very much of newer Firewind. This track is what I like about bands like this labeled as progressive power metal, the ability to not make every song sound the same and switch back and forth between my two favorite genres of metal. Once again another awesome guitar and keyboard solo where the instruments were separated and then brought together. It becomes pretty apparent very early in this album that the solos are not going to disappoint and musically may be some of DGM's best work to date.Universe is where the album starts to catch a bit of a snag. The vocals are definitely a lot more powerful than on the last album, but although musically competent isn't very memorable to me at first. After about 3 minutes in none of it is sticking with me. Once again though I am very impressed with how well the guitars and keyboards flow with each other throughout the solo, but for the most part not extremely impressed with the song.The fourth track, Numb, definitely begins to take a few pages out of the Pagan's Mind playbook, extremely progressive guitar groove, lots of drum fills and a couple blast beats, very clean vocals, and a really memorable chorus and backing vocals. Lyrically very inspiring as well. I've always been a huge fan of thought provoking emotional lyrics. There never has really been anything wrong with progressive metal bands admitting that they aren't mindless robots and actually have feelings. This is probably one of the most memorable tracks on the album as well.The next track, Pages, once again goes back to the formula they had established on the past couple of albums; Very competent musically, not extremely memorable, very nice solos, and will probably end up like most progressive metal songs that you actually end up liking significantly more after listening to it a few times. This isn't bad by any means, but not instantly memorable.Ballads are always a tough part for some bands. This has never been true for DGM. Repay starts off with a very pretty piano intro and then pretty soon kicks into power ballad status musically. There is definitely a lot of emotion to Mark's voice in this track. It feels like what he is singing actually really means something to him, which is how I've always felt every band should write and perform their songs.Having guest musicians I've always felt is a great idea. It builds dimensions to your music and gives it a flavor that it probably wouldn't have had without. Chaos with Jorn Viggo Lofstad on guitar is definitely made better by this addition. Once it again it has the technical ability that Pagan's Mind has been displaying for years while still managing to write very memorable songs. The lyrics "Losing control just to be myself" hits home pretty hard as I'm sure it would with most metal fans. It seems like a song that is about struggling to try to find your own identity in a world where people make you feel like you don't belong. The lyrics to Chaos is what pushes it to be one of my favorite tracks as well. It is always great to hear songs that you can personally relate to.Remembrance has got to be one of the most emotional tracks I've ever heard out of this band. It reminds us that we quite often want something that we can't have out of life yet we have to find some kind of way to live with it. A sort of dreary mid paced song that has probably the most emotional keyboard and guitar solos on the album. This wouldn't be out of place on an early to mid period Dream Theater album definitely, and I'd definitely love to hear DGM write even more songs like this in the future.The next track Overload is just that, an overload of solos. It just continues to be what has made the majority of this album extremely impressive, which is an overabundance of guitar and keyboard solos and very powerful vocals. I have a feeling that this one along with a couple of other tracks are probably the type that grow on you even more though after a few listens.Unique keyboard leads is something I have always really enjoyed as well. It takes me back to a time in music where bands wanted to catch your attention immediately and put a riff in your head for days. Void does just that. It almost sounds like the keyboard riff from any 80s pop song only metalized. In fact a lot of this song sounds as though it could be easily done in a different genre and still work. I immensely enjoy where it breaks down and for the first time in the album you can actually hear a really awesome bass groove with some piano interplay before the guitar solo kicks in very nicely. Once again this leads back to more guitar and keyboard interplay, which has been pretty much the main musical theme to this entire album. Musically this is also one of my personal favorite tracks on the album. The mellow piano work at the end of the track sets up perfectly for the final song on the album as well.Its always great to see a band actually be able to finish strong on an album. Blame starts off very calmly on piano and from the beginning is just a massive wall of emotion. It seems like a song about not being able to trust the people who used to be close to you because of something extremely negative that they have done to you in the past. It seems like they are just saying that they ironically accept the blame for something that wasn't actually their fault to begin with. Outside of the opening track this is probably my favorite song on the album, which is rare, because with a lot of albums of this genre I often begin to lose interest towards the latter portion of the album. Blame is just extremely memorable and emotional all the way through. I actually found myself playing the song a second time immediately after it ended.I was not expecting much out of this album at all and it by far exceeded my expectations. The guitar and keyboard solos are top notch, the vocals have a new found power to them, the songs are extremely memorable, and there isn't really much of what I'd consider filler tracks. This may very well end up being one of my top albums of 2013.
Line Up:
Mark Basile - Vocals - See also: ex-Mind Key
Andrea Arcangeli - Bass (2003-present) - See also: Airlines of Terror, Evidence, Solisia, ex-Concept, ex-River of Change, ex-Thy Mortal Eyes
Simone Mularoni - Guitars (2006-present) - See also: Empyrios, Lalu, Hortus Animae (live)
Emanuele Casali - Keyboards (2006-present) - See also: Astra, ex-Empyrios
Fabio Constantino - Drums (1999-present) - See also: ex-Carnal Rapture
Tracklist:
01. Reason
02. Trust
03. Universe
04. Numb
05. Pages
06. Repay
07. Chaos
08. Remembrance
09. Overload
10. Void
11. Blame
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