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Sun Caged - The Lotus Effect (2011)

Posted By: Notsaint

Date: 23 Sep 2011 05:46:02

The challenge of any progressive rock or metal is to be both creatively complex and accessible. Sometimes you need the latter just to get the listener to consider the former. With their third release The Lotus Effect, Sun Caged seems to want the intrigue of their arrangements to persuade you of their accessibility. Or perhaps not. The Lotus Effect will take some work from the listener: patience and attention is necessary to mine its depths.

The formula for the songs of The Lotus Effect seems to be moderately paced, steady and solemn arrangements, marked by springs of keyboard and guitar expressions. This appears in the less than auspicious, rather dismal, beginning of Seamripper. If you hang your interest in this album on this song, you will not get far in your experience. But things improve slowly with Tip-Toe the Fault Line, where you get your first true tasted of the ambitious keyboard and guitar solos. But they are really only the best things about the song.

Though the formula varies ever so slightly, The Lotus Effect becomes more approachable with accessible prog rock of Ashes to Ear, quite nice, and Shades of Hades, with its all too brief rock fusion within. Reductio as Absurdum's flash is the extravagant neo-classical guitar solo. But that seems to be the course of things. These are steady, sometimes heavy arrangements, with bursts of imagination within. Often you feel like your just muddling through, only waiting for those eruptions from guitar or synthesizer. This is certainly true on On Again/Off Again which mimics the earlier Tip-Toe the Fault Line formula, but also on the following and quizzical Lotus.
Finding that fine balance between complexity and accessibility finally comes in the last part of The Lotus Effect. The lengthy Pareidolized comes close, but is mostly that formula of a moderate pace, a touch of heaviness, and interesting solos. The real interest and intrigue comes during Parasol through the closing song Let It Wash Away. Curiously, these are all brief pieces. Yet, Sun Caged packs each with impressive and entertaining music, especially within the straight instrumental Moebius Knot. Taken as a whole, however, (and I believe they are to be linked to the previous Pareidolized) these six songs are some of the best modern progressive metal you'll find. Without dismissing the interest of the rest of the album, my only wish is that this music had come early on.

Sun Caged's The Lotus Effect offers the best of progressive metal expectations: complex and intriguing music that requires equally patient and thoughtful listening.
~ dangerdog.com

Tracklist
1. Seamripper (& The Blanket Statement) 08:13
2. Tip-Toe the Fault-Line 06:57
3. Ashes To Ear 05:18
4. Shades of Hades 05:43
5. Reductio ad Absurdum 06:18
6. On Again / Off Again 07:25
7. Lotus 06:17
8. Pareidolized (The Ocean in the Shell) 10:00
9. Parasol 01:43
10. Wave the Banner 01:41
11. Fish Afraid of Drowning 02:14
12. Moebius Knot 02:26
13. Full Circle 01:55
14. Let it Wash Away (The Lotus Effect) 05:49

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009

EAC extraction logfile from 8. July 2011, 15:57

Sun Caged / The Lotus Effect

Used drive : Optiarc DVD RW AD-7240S Adapter: 0 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : No
Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 32 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\FLAC.EXE
Additional command line options : -6 -V %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 8:13.73 | 0 | 37047
2 | 8:13.73 | 6:57.10 | 37048 | 68332
3 | 15:11.08 | 5:18.71 | 68333 | 92253
4 | 20:30.04 | 5:42.45 | 92254 | 117948
5 | 26:12.49 | 6:17.64 | 117949 | 146287
6 | 32:30.38 | 7:24.41 | 146288 | 179628
7 | 39:55.04 | 6:17.10 | 179629 | 207913
8 | 46:12.14 | 10:00.10 | 207914 | 252923
9 | 56:12.24 | 1:42.48 | 252924 | 260621
10 | 57:54.72 | 1:41.32 | 260622 | 268228
11 | 59:36.29 | 2:14.27 | 268229 | 278305
12 | 61:50.56 | 2:25.74 | 278306 | 289254
13 | 64:16.55 | 1:55.16 | 289255 | 297895
14 | 66:11.71 | 5:49.10 | 297896 | 324080

Range status and errors

Selected range

Filename Z:\Sun Caged - The Lotus Effect.wav

Peak level 100.0 %
Range quality 100.0 %
Copy CRC AD261A05
Copy OK

No errors occurred

AccurateRip summary

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None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

End of status report

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