The latest album from Dutch Progmaster Tom de Wit and his Dreamwalkers Inc team comes with extravagant artwork. It’s great artwork. The detail is telling as this is a man and a band with a passion for detail. “The First Tragedy of Klahera” is a concept album based on a story written by Tom about an adopted girl called Klahera who struggles to come to terms with life and belonging in the village where she finds herself. It’s the first of a series of albums, we’re told. This is the first 85 minutes of it – Tom is a man for ideas and is never afraid to express them.

Mystery briefly fills the air. Through a tribal drum section and rock instrumental, a male / female combo provides the narration with the accompaniment of a choir. It’s typically verbose. The lyrics require attention. This all comes with the flowing prog metal of “Justice My Tragedy”. “All roads lead to acceptance”, philosophises vocalist Tom. The instrumental skies darken, and the song ends with a rant and the crying of a child, and leads into “Child of the Bloodmoon”. This concerns the rescue and adoption of the child Klahera from the forest. The soft but menacing song sounds a warning. What I’m getting is that this is heavy on story, with the music being in tune but coming a close second. This ends with the reassurances of the adoptive parents. “Oldstead” presents a far from welcoming face. In fact it’s very dark. The vocals are anguished. The music is strident and tense. What it is good at is creating atmosphere, and conveying the distance between the bemused girl and her parents and environment. “Broken Puzzle Piece” immediately weighs us down. The dark musical tone is reflected within the message, which is conveyed again by the vocals of Tom de Wit and Radina Dimcheva, and supported by choral emphasis, and dialogue extracts at the end. It’s like someone wrote a rule book and never explained it, proclaims Tom as he expresses the sense of alienation felt by the girl.

The music isn’t overwhelming but the message is powerful. Electronic waves and an urgent metal attack reflect the turmoil. “It Lives” is the song. Tom expresses the frustration. Radina expresses the anger, fear and sense of being overwhelmed. “And what we fear we put away” cries the chorus. The music, while indicative of the frustration, is well constructed and dynamic in a rock and roll style. The dialogue at the end tells us that the story itself is hitting nightmarish depths. A jazz blues vibe then takes over. “Despicable” is a strange song and while noting it adds to the context of the story, it’s a strange, experimental piece. As far as I could make out, it’s about the balance of life being disturbed by the arrival of the girl. Musically it’s very interesting indeed. Tom seems to have an obsession with the rules. Here it’s about breaking them. The dialogue at the end is disturbing. The story is becoming more disturbing. Rapid-fire guitar work introduces “Knowledge from Afar”, a theatrical prog piece. It’s time for a celebration with which the girl is uncomfortable. She feels things while the adults follow convention is the simplistic message. The girl’s expressions of discomfort are conveyed very well, I think. The song “Celebrations” fits in nicely, with its mediaeval folksy tune and exotic drum pattern turning into a mirror of celebration on one side and bemusement on the other. Musically it’s bouncy but always cleverly tinged with dark overtones. A short dialogue between daughter and mother about feeling different prefixes the soft acoustic “Mother Dearest”. The alternating vocal between Tom and Radina reinforces the message as they thrash out the problem, culminating in Tom’s anger “I don’t understand what’s wrong or right”. The music becomes more frenzied and tense, as the dialogue contextualises the story – this doesn’t make it sound very interesting, I admit, but this is like a progressive musical play with attendant emotions coming forth from the dialogue and pitch of the music.

There’s a very interesting saxophone section in among a funky tune. A darkly delivered chorus ensues as the girl’s isolation is confirmed and expressed in words. This thirteen- minute rejection song is full on and exploratory in both a musical and lyrical sense. One issue I had to get established in my mind is that Tom, Radina and the choir are relating the story while commenting and not relating directly to roles in the story as you perhaps might expect. Perhaps it’s just me, but normally a story is a story without the overlay of musical commentary like this by two, three if you count the choir, parties who seem to be having a meeting about the story. After this blood and thunder piece, at least in a progressive way, the more reflective acoustic piece “Pushed” follows. Even this ends in turmoil and near breaking point. We rush metallically into ”Heroes and Charlatans”. It’s a rock piece with an electronic buzz. Although the vocals fit into the song, they represent a drama and tension which isn’t really in the music until the end. I’ve often thought that Tom’s place is on the stage of a theatre and time and time again he demonstrates this. His world is dense and intense, which can make for a difficult listening experience if you’re not completely on the same intensity wavelength. We’re now into battle mode and with it the battle match. The guitar strikes a melodically metal pose of defiance. The girl has been accused of heresy. We’re in court. The dialogue between the judge and the girl can be heard. She is guilty, but is she? “Discovery” is dramatic. “We are here to determine the fate of the outsider” is the opening line of the final piece “Chain of Consequences”. A discussion takes place between the village folk. Tom sings the summary, while Radina represents the view that she is but a child. The music is sombre, breaking out into a fast and hard melody. Now Tom and Radina through their harmonies present the opposing view and explore the chain of consequences as per the title which lead to the girl being banished from the village. The song has burst into life both musically and lyrically and it occurred to me that this last song provided some of the most dynamic moments of this gargantuan opus.

Other than once I listened to this as I would read a book i.e. not all in one go. There is a logic in that, given its packed nature. Just as certain books can’t be put down, for me this album didn’t have that quality, and I found the best way was to deal with it in small doses. Except that Tom and his Dreamwalkers don’t do things in small doses. “The First Tragedy of Klahera” is strong on story, and a psychologically dark one at that. The music reflects this but I think if it wasn’t for the high quality and breadth of the musicianship, and the expressiveness of Tom’s and Radina’s vocals, I think I’d have found this album in part stifling and indigestible. It’s better than that but even so, interesting as the story is, I still found it quite hard going and would prescribe it as something to be taken three times a day rather than on one go.

(7/10 Andrew Doherty)

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