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Legend Part II

Okay, so HM Magazine sometimes covers bands before other mags will touch them... So what! That's just our job. We were glad to give this band coverage -- even after the controversy that surrounded their presentation and tour way back in '93. We were honored to have them play our stage last year. But, just like any normal music fan out there, there's a tendency to really like those groups and sounds that are underground and a well-kept secret. Once it becomes above-ground and mainstream, you dig below and look around for something else. Even before Saviour Machine completed its second part of the Legend trilogy, this writer finds himself wanting to find something wrong with the band. I feel the momentum of the Saviour Machine bandwagon gaining speed, and I want to jump off before I'm caught up in the mainstream like a violent riptide at Huntington Beach. As much as I want to dislike this album, though, I cannot help myself from applauding the carefully-placed melodies, the complimenting sounds of a varied and sometimes classical music palette. It's too good to trash. One thing I can say, though, is that this album takes you on a journey. It just takes a long time to get there. This is a CD -- a listening experience -- that you want to read the 20-page CD booklet from cover to cover, then take under the headphones in a dark room. You must do this long before you take it out in the car stereo and expect to get much out of it. This album requires an investment beyond the $15 to $20 it takes to get it home. It requires patience and the type of concentration that a classical student is used to. The MTV sound-byte generation doesn't have a hit single to latch onto, nor a single rhyming verse; just an image -- a pale, stark image of Eric Clayton. With lots of spoken narration interspersed throughout, the 79 minutes and 29 seconds keep you either enthralled or bored out of your mind. The music is anything but boring, however, just epic. The production is flawless. Even a fan of the revered Pink Floyd would be hard pressed to find guitar riffs as cool as the ones in "The False Prophet." If you want a real treat, listen to Legend Part I first, and follow it with Part II in the same sitting. It'll take over two and a half hours, but you'll be able to hear and recognize repeating themes and riffs, like the hypnotic guitar chimes found on "Antichrist I" that find themselves fittingly repeated in "Mark Of The Beast." Remarkable. For many, "finally a Christian produces something timeless again!" [Massacre/ DV]