Review by David on March 25, 2005.

Strange thing to say of a “metal” band, but Dream Theater always seemed most tolerable when they were doing their more ballad-like material. Here with his solo album, Elements of Persuasion, James LaBrie is essentially taking a more direct approach than the last DT album I heard (Scenes from a Memory) and in the process shows why the pussywhipped side of his day job seems to have the run of things.

With no further beating around the bush, LaBrie’s vocals are, by and large, wrong. Opener “Crucify” perfectly illustrates the point at hand. With its heavy guitars dealing out thick speedy metal verses and a natty pre-chorus breakdown you’re getting a surprisingly fierce track that sounds modern and relatively aggressive; largely the story of the album. There are some duff moments on the album musically, for instance “Drained” contains a particularly comical riff and “Invisible” is just plain tedious. In the main these problems aren’t all too common.

LaBrie’s over the top squeals, however, are a pain in the ass. When he keeps his tone at a moderate level it’s tolerable despite being a small fit for the big music. As he slowly creeps into “balls-in-a-vice” territory it gets uncomfortable and I had to keep checking that my own manhood hadn’t dropped off in sympathy.

A personal highlight of the album, “Slightly out of Reach,” shows the best side of his abilities; the sappy balladry ensures he keeps to the lower tones, and in tandem with the keyboard washes makes the track sound somewhat heartfelt. Of course there’s an overdone guitar solo that gets bothersome after a short while - residue from the day job? Perhaps.

In all this is actually more an enjoyable album than I expected it to be. Some slightly awkward moments musically and a fair amount of shocking moments vocally only take this down a few notches. Overall a pleasant listen that will likely grow on you like a nasty fungal infection.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 7
Atmosphere: 6
Production: 9
Originality: 5
Overall: 8

Rating: 7 out of 10

Review by Michael on November 28, 2002.

Not having heard Taake before this listen, I was not sure what to expect. With the very Black Metal–esque band name and album title, I was fairly sure of what I was in for with this band.

"Bjoergvin" is basically your stock standard Black Metal album. The songs are well constructed, the guitar lines are fast paced, the drums are very quick and the vocals are straight out of the “Guide to Classic Black Metal” handbook. Not taking anything away from the band, they are very good at what they do, but like many new bands emerging at the moment…its nothing new. The band is obviously aware of this, and they have made some small advances on the standard sound. Clean vocals have been used sparingly on the album, and to good effect, but a more varied use of EQ on them would have gone a long way to really spacing the songs and giving the clean vocals a different and more effective dynamic to the screams and growls.

An interesting element to Taake are their use of quirky time signatures, not only sticking to the sea shanty like groove that Black Metal bands such as Emperor and Dimmu Borgir made so famous, they have experimented with many different rhythms, which at times go as far as to sound like a ramba or even a reggae beat! I’m not sure if I like these types of changes, but full credit goes to the guys for trying something new and being inventive.

Production wise this album is better than a lot of black metal but is still below the standard of many of the bigger bands in the scene. Too much mid range and not nearly enough bottom and top end creating a very bland all over sound containing basically no dynamics at all.

Bottom Line: I’m not sure what else to say about this band. They play black metal, and they do play black metal well, but when it comes down to it they are simply that, another black metal band.

Categorical Rating Breakdown

Musicianship: 7
Atmosphere: 6
Production: 5
Originality: 5
Overall: 7

Rating: 6 out of 10