HARDWARES

Detroit progsters Tiles have delivered an additional batch of Enchant-inflected Rush-fer-the’90s prog metal with finesse and organic texturing on this, their first album in four years and their fifth overall. Fly Paper finds the band tightening their songwriting, with large influence on that front from Rush and Max Webster producer Terry Brown who turns in a gorgeous, creamy sound picture for the band. Melodies are to the fore and there’s a sense of higher impact this time around, with the guys gathering up the likes of Alannah Myles, Kim Mitchell and Alex Lifeson for guest slots. The guys make no apologies for the inevitable Rush comparisons, with Chris Herin capturing Lifeson’s polite electric sound and even layering acoustics like Rush is wont to do in the ‘90s right up to the present. Nice range to the thing as well, as fave ‘Crowd Emptiness’ leans toward well-wishing, soul-replenished Yes, and ‘Back And Forth’, when it hurdles the wall, has a playful reggae-tipped vibe to it. ‘Sacred & Mundane’ finds the band throwing their shoulder out, and ‘Landscrape’ features a carnal and marauding riff, but really, much of the rest of the album gathers around complicated electric pop metal, Tiles staking a terrain like no other save for perhaps Spock’s Beard, even their heavy stuff sonically arranged on light footing. Vocally, I dunno, I always figure a vocalist is at a disadvantage when he’s way too comfortably in his range, and Paul Rarick really doesn’t sound like he has to push much air – call the result an acquired taste, although ‘Landscrape’ is kind of a cool direction for him.