May 5th, 2016 
Kacy Raby 
Artist: Lines In The Sky
Album: Parallel Travel
Genre: Progressive Rock
Label: Faster Steps Records
What a time to be alive! We live in an age where any talented musician in the world can make themselves available to be heard by the entirety of the human population. Well…except for people who don’t have internet access. Oh, and the tribes of Sentinel Island near Burma who kill any outsiders who even come close to their shores. I don’t think I’d want to imagine what they’d do if they were tech savvy. I digress…
These days, it’s easy for us to get desensitized to great music because there’s so much of it available to us. We’ve heard amazing singers, guitarists, bassists, drummers, keyboard players. We’ve seen wild frontmen and crazy stage antics. What does it take to truly impress the modern music lover these days? Unfortunately, too much.
This past week, Nashville prog-stompers Lines In The Sky released their second full-length album, Parallel Travel. The album features all these things we look for: amazing musicianship and tight songwriting. But is that always enough? With this album, it unfortunately doesn’t seem to be.
Parallel Lines showcases creative guitar work, driving bass-lines, and a drummer who throws in timbale-like toms with his fills, making them pop fantastically. The disconnect seems to come with the vocals. Frontman Jesse Brock is an amazing singer, there is no doubt about that. The issue lies with his theater-esque style not quite meshing with the more complex, proggy passages in many of the songs on the album. When they fall back into more ethereal moments, he shines beautifully—and don’t get me wrong, he has some beautiful sections when things get heavier. On the second half of the record, “This World Is Not Big Enough For Me” slams through with Brock emitting Patrick Stump-style pipes over an Artifex Pereo-type banger. On the album’s closer, “Oceans,” he croons through melodic minor verses and a chorus that will surely make you strain to keep up while singing in the car. At times like these, he reminds me of a young Devin Shelton from Emery’s early days.
If I were to sum up this album in one word, it would be “potential.” There are some truly standout moments where the band and their frontman mesh amazingly, but as a whole, it’s just too hit or miss. If they learn to better channel those big instances of harmony and make an entire record of that, they could become a huge name in the prog-rock scene. Especially since their music is so accessible from the get-go, something that proves difficult for many progressive bands.
SCORE: 6/10
Check out Lines In The Sky on Facebook and buy Parallel Travel on iTunes!
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