Seldom does a progressive metal band leap to the fore with such a confident debut album as Dali’s Dilemma, especially one from the climes of northern California (San Jose to be exact) where the band has honed to perfection their debut record, Manifesto For Futurism. Records of this razor-sharp bite and rapid brilliance are usually crafted in Germany or Sweden, it seems, but Dali’s Dilemma manages to capture the essence of Yngwie Malmsteen, Rainbow, and Deep Purple, swirling it all together with progressive metal flourishes.

The band is built around a solid songwriting ethic. The two brothers, guitarist Patrick and bassist Steve Reyes, met keyboardist Matt Guillory in ‘94, soon adding vocalist Matt Bradley and drummer Jeremy Colson to create the synergy that is this astonishingly capable prog metal maelstrom. Guillory is the band’s resident rock veteran, having appeared on approximately 10 records for various artists, as well as Magna Carta’s Rush tribute, the Pink Floyd tribute and the recent Magna Carta collaborative piece The Age Of Impact from The Explorers Club.

The band’s strange name came about rather rapidly (as does everything with this band). Matt’s uncle suggested ‘Dali’s Dilemma’ just as the boys had to abandon, for legal reasons, their former moniker. “We needed a name really fast because Magna Carta wanted to start doing promotion,” Matt recalls with a laugh. “To us, Salvador Dali was an excellent painter, a surrealist, always very experimental, unconstrained by boundaries, which ties into the type of music we’re playing. We try to create without limits and come across as really expressive. The ‘Dilemma’ part refers more to the challenge of doing something this experimental and becoming commercially accepted. I’m sure Dali was quite appreciated but it seems he had more of a cult following, just like progressive rock and its offshoots within metal.”

But for all the band’s amazing musicianship, there is a discernible and distinguished hard rock current flowing beneath the mayhem. This is entirely intentional, and when pressed for influences, Matt cites the classics: old Metallica, old Rush and Pantera. On the lighter side, U2 is cited for their spiritualism and trademark sound, which can be heard on stirring ballad ‘Hills Of Memory’, a track underscored by a particularly Bono-esque vocal from Matt Bradley, who elsewhere evokes the passion and magnificence of a Jeff Scott Soto or a Glenn Hughes.

But make no mistake, this one’s jammed full of riffs and Yngwie-inspired axe acrobatics, as evidenced by the large and looming first and last tracks on the album, entitled ‘Within A Stare’ and ‘Living In Fear’ respectively. Matt agrees: “I guess if you had to describe our music it would be very technical, very ambient; it runs the gamut. There’s a wide range of styles which we all enjoy, but these two songs really hit home what we’re all about: the heaviness, the progressive influence and the emotion.”
Lyrically, Dali’s Dilemma is also strong and versatile. In fact, Steve, Matt and Jeremy contributed solo-credited lyrics, and Patrick turned in a collaboration with Jeremy. Songs are derived from very personal sources and are not only rendered oblique enough that they can often relate directly to experiences we all have in common, but also to intense, otherworldly or fantasy realms. A rare occasion where that platitudinous “they’re open to whatever interpretation someone wants to put on it” actually applies. “It’s all very personal but we try to make it poetic,” Matt offers with a dismissive wave of the hand.

The final touch to this well-appointed package is the Zappa-esque, and more accurately, Dali-esque artwork of graphics legend Dave McKean. Matt explains: “Dave’s really well- known, and we all really like his work, so we asked him if he’d be interested in doing ours and he said yes. The cover image is a statue of a head with a kind of Salvador Dali mustache on it, with these weird arms coming out the eye sockets; very surreal and something that Dali might do. It just completes the whole concept.”

All told, Manifesto For Futurism just might be the liveliest, hookiest, most rhythmically daunting pageant of prog metal since Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime, Dream Theater’s Images And Words, or Shadow Gallery’s Tyranny. All deserve a place in the pantheon of higher musical learning of a most metallic nature.

Musically, I would have to say it all started way back around 1980 - 81. I grew up with a brother 4 years older than me and he was a Kiss fanatic. The member specifically in Kiss he was a fanatic about was Peter Criss. Not only was it Kiss, but Led Zeppelin (John Bonham), Black Sabbath (Bill Ward), Rainbow (Whether it be Gary Driscoll, Cozy Powell or Bobby Rondinelli) & Deep Purple (Ian Paice) You can probably see where this is going, my brother wanted to be a drummer and a drummer he did become. Listening to these bands constantly and consistently playing either in the forefront or the back ground solidified the type of music I was to fall in love with. Around 1983 the local Library in my home town of Broadview,Ill. was to become a home away from home because of two things - 1) I discovered the Apple II c computer and 2) all the music they had on tape cassette and vinyl I could rent. The hours I have spent with my childhood friend, Allen,  working on the computer learning to program, playing games, writing our own stories and meeting new people who we were able to copy there big old floppy disks to expand our collection was the pinnacle of my youth. While their I discovered bands like Journey, Thin Lizzy, Styx, AC/DC, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Metallica, the list can go on and on.

It wasn’t until 1986 that I purchased my first 2 cassettes - Krokus - Alive & Screamin’ and Megadeth - Peace Sells…. But who’s buying. Holy crap these two bands changed the way I was going to look at music forever! This isn’t to say that I did not own my own music at this time, but this was the first two I purchased on my own. From this point on the flood gates opened and I found bands like Alice Cooper, Pretty Maids, TNT, Cinderella, Warrant, Motley Crue, Dokken, Fire House, Skid Row, Queensryche, Dream Theater, Scorpions, Poison, Y&T, Guns N’ Roses, Danzig, Dangerous Toys, Lizzy Borden, Slayer, Fates Warning, Manowar, ________________ (Insert any and all Glam metal / Hair Metal / Heavy Metal / Thrash band here). I was to find and absorb anything Metal. I was also absorbing the local Chicago metal scene at the time - Radakka, Holland, Defcon, Syndrome, Stonehenge, Enuff Z’ Nuff and hundreds of others. My brother was already a pretty darn good drummer in a band called Wicked Rhyme and played shows at the Thirsty Whale and a little dive called the Corrall constantly so I was exposed to a lot of local bands as well as big name bands who actually came through and played at these venues.

It wasn’t until the early 90’s that my musical ear lead my in a darker and heavier direction. Here I discovered bands like Venom, Bathory, Benediction, Resurrection, Dark Throne, Bolt Thrower, Samael, Cemetery and hundreds of others. These bands with their dark imagery and lyrics fascinated me to no end. You can probably imagine all the various bands ranging from Proggressive Rock/glam metal/hard rock to extreme black/death/brutal metal that I have that could fill the gaps between these generes.

Today, specifically right now in 2008 I’m currently listening to a lot of progressive metal. I have an ear for each and every musical instrument and I marvel at the precision and talent from a lot of these bands. The fore runner of course (and probably the originator of this sub-genere) being Dream Theater. I get a real kick out of reading online reviews for new bands and how people constantly compair these bands to Dream Theater.

I’m just a person who can never get enough music and will always be on the search for new and exciting music and bands.

More to come from bands i love or newly discover.