The Demo Review:

	There are currently 1 Reviews of this Demo. Average Rating: 2
Band Name: Final Tragedy Demo Title: Greed Band Members: Delphine Cochand (Vocals) and Jean-Luc Millot (Guitar, Bass, Keyboards & Programming). Location:Dasle, France Email for This Artist Official Web Site for This Artist Discuss on the Metal Judgment Web Board

Musashi's Review:
I watched American Idol last night and I think it is the most entertaining thing I've seen on television in years. Three judges audition thousands of aspiring stars and pick a hundred to audition again and tell the rest to fuck off. These judges just told people that they could not sing and to forget about careers in music. The brutal truth was so refreshing. I could not get enough of it. People actually think that they have talent and when they hear otherwise, it can be devastating. Watching the show made me think about my job as demo reviewer. I get lots of CDs from bands that think they are great and I have to tell them that they are not and you get to read about it and hopefully be entertained.
So I have this CD from France, one of my least favorite countries. The first thing that I notice when I put the CD on is that the mix sucks... bad. The bass is boomy and has too much reverb. The ancient Greeks were very progressive and did lots of crazy things. One thing they liked to do is party. They would drink wine and smoke stuff and eat stuff that would make them hallucinate. Then when they were really fucked up they would go see the oracle. The way the oracle would work is that the customer would pay his money, go into an empty room and ask a question into a small hole, like a sort of confessional. The hole would actually be the opening to a long pipe that would lead to a large cavernous room where the oracle, who was often crazy and also really high, sat. The oracle would make predictions and give cryptic and nonsensical answers that would travel through the long pipe and eventually be heard by the customer. The effect of the cavernous room and the long pipe would be that of a reverb chamber. Thus the bellowing voice of the oracle would take on this great ominous tone that would command respect and deference. That is why it is often said the difference between insanity and profundity is reverb. Unfortunately, today reverb is used all too often to try to capture that feeling of grandeur and omnipotence that would cause the listener to think your mediocre music is actually the music of the gods. We here at Metaljudgment see through that.
Final Tragedy is a progressive metal band that sounds like Dream Theater. Actually it sounds like one guy in his bedroom trying to sound like Dream Theater. I have a great deal of respect for solo artists that can do everything themselves, but I have a greater respect for solo artists who realize their own limitations and can hire other people to do things better than them. The story here is obvious, Jean-Luc has major wood for Dream Theater and wants to sit in his bedroom and be a musical genius and write progressive music. Of course, he cannot find people to play with him because he is an egomaniac and does not believe that other musicians can play his music as he envisions it (not to mention it is far too complicated for mere mortals to play). So he buys some home studio gear and does it himself. Giving a nod to teamwork and realizing that maybe he does not have the best voice, he finds a vocalist to "collaborate" with. After cutting the vocal tracks he can sit in his home studio and play mad scientist as he labors endlessly over his precious music alone for hours. He is of course convinced that he must use that expensive reverb unit he just bought on everything because it sounds so good and was so expensive and so he could tell everyone that he used that really expensive reverb unit. Anyway now I have to listen to this washed out sounding CD with tons of reverb.
Suffering is great for artists. Great art is often born of suffering and tragedy. However, suffering is bad for the listener. I do not like to suffer through bad mixes of mediocre music. It is not that the songs or anything is particularly bad, but it has no human feel to it. The guitar playing is actually really good and I hear lots of interesting music on this CD, but sadly it is painful to listen to because the good stuff sounds like it is at the other end of a football stadium.
Delphine and Jean-Luc might have a chance at starting a good band and recording something good if they would actually try to work with high caliber musicians and producers. I think their anti-label view is holding them back from making good music. "Greed" is entirely salvageable if Final Tragedy is willing to hire someone to remix the entire thing. As for the listener, I would suggest you wait until Final Tragedy comes up with something new.

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