Starting with 2002’s The Odyssey, Symphony X started working with darker themes and more aggressive, groove-oriented songwriting. Aside from a few shining moments, these albums were far less airy and captivating than the band that penned power-prog anthems like “Evolution (The Grand Design),” the heroic “In the Dragon’s Den,” or the cinematic and gorgeous “Egypt.” 2006’s Paradise Lost was my least favorite of these; aside from the beautiful title track, its songs felt overly heavy and weighed down (despite the deluxe version of the album actually having fold-out wings). 2011’s Iconoclast fared much better, with more listenable songs and a dystopian/futuristic concept that warranted the rougher attitude.

Allen’s vocals were the most noticeable difference throughout this period; they grew coarser and more growly to match this new and fiercer tone. The grit and roughness are really nothing new, as he’s worked them into his delivery since as far back as The Divine Wings of Tragedy – but over the years, it’s been sometimes so pronounced that it sounds forced.

Underworld‘s first single “Nevermore” opens with more of these overdone growls, and when I first heard them, I cringed. Not a promising start, and given the dark mythological theme, likely to be used throughout the album. However, the growls are only used at the start of the verses on this song (and a few others), and when Allen reaches the chorus, his voice brightens and becomes more buoyant. Whew. Rougher vocals aside, “Nevermore” is another Symphony X marvel of frenetic melody and syncopated, technical rhythm work, and I’ve played it a lot since. Still don’t care for its intro though.

There are more gravelly snarls in “Underworld,” even more pronounced than before, and yet they work a little better. Allen even cranks to some genuine roars and those work much better. The track has a meaner, more wicked sound than “Nevermore,” but they’re offset by fantasy synths, a classic Symphony X gallop, a dramatic chorus, hellfire choirs, and a dynamic prog-metal second half. And the growls return once again, heaviest of all, on “Kiss of Fire,” at which point I thought, well, why not just go full-on death vocals? The rest of the album’s vocals, I’m happy to say, are a cleaner throwback to the Symphony X of old – and the songs feel that way as well.

They still have the heaviness and aggression of their last few releases, but they also feel lighter, more nimble. More neoclassical hooks and fireworks like in the old days, and above all, more brilliant melodies and appealing, catchy choruses. “Charon,” about the legendary ferryman of the Styx, has a serpentine, Middle-Eastern inflected verse, and its chorus could be the sinister cousin to “Egypt,” while “In My Darkest Hour” (no Megadeth cover here) and the rock-radio-ready “Run with the Devil” are both tightly-crafted rippers with killer hooks. Just before them, album centerpiece “To Hell and Back” (a trim 9:23, which is short for an opus), kicks off with a shimmering synth-and-guitar duet that wouldn’t sound out of place on a mid-80s Foreigner album. It turns dark and groovy as it spirals down into, well, you know. Once there, it becomes contemplative, soothed by Russell’s crooned vocals, and then begins the climb back up to the light with a kick-ass second chorus (“On and on and on, no quarter asked, no quarter given”) and more trade-off pyrotechnics between Romeo and Pinnella.

There are also two excellent ballads. Symphony X‘s slower tracks are usually sumptuous and delicate, like their classic “The Accolade.” “Without You” (thankfully not a Motley Crue cover) instead starts as an early ’80s AOR piece, with its stripped-down acoustics and addictive chorus, and soon transforms into a mid-paced rocker. “Swan Song,” much later in the album, does sound like it could be the fourth part to “The Accolade” though (Part II is on The Odyssey, and Iconoclast‘s fantastic “When All is Lost” may as well be Part III), as it opens with the same gentle piano lines. Instead of cresting to a triumphant chorus, it remains muted and somber, except for a hypnotic, Rush-like prog-odyssey in the bridge.

Then there’s closer “Legend,” a song so majestic and satisfying – with a chorus that’s nothing less than ebullient – that I had to listen to it three times in a row on my first album playthrough. Anyone yearning for the rhapsodic days of ’90s Symphony X will be very happy.

Symphony X has long been one of my favorite power/prog bands. They tick the necessary boxes off for dizzying technicality, pummelling rhythms, and a self-aware and shameless sense of grandeur and fantasy, but above all, they’ve always been able to write catchy, tightly-crafted songs that are as effortless to listen to as they must be difficult to write and play. However, the last fifteen years’ worth of darker, more intentionally aggressive albums (and the exaggerated, rougher vocals that came with them) weren’t as satisfying as the albums that made me a fan in the first place. Hopefully that phase is over now, because it’s been too long since I’ve heard a collection of their songs that has delighted me as much as Underworld. Ironic that I expected it to be more dark and forbidding than ever, and yet it’s turned out to be their most dazzling album in years.

Michael Romeo: Oh yeah, it’s all good.

How did your last American and European tours go over?

With these tours, we wanted to do a lot of the Paradise Lost material and, you know, I mean, we tried to pull out a couple older songs that we had, and, you know, get a little mix.  We didn’t want to do too many new songs just because no one [had] heard the material, but I think we tried to, we rehearsed like four songs we tried to get into the set, and you know, we would play maybe two on a certain night and then maybe a different two.  We kind of mixed it up a little.  You know, on the new record, there’s some longer songs, and we do some more complex songs, but then there’s a lot of just, like, you know, straight and to-the-point kind of songs, you know?  A lot of shorter songs, it’s just like with a good riff and a good hook and, you know, that kind of thing.

So we pretty much gravitated to doing those, because we figured, you know, at first listen, they’re probably pretty easy to grasp.  We didn’t want to do anything too crazy, and when we started the tour in Europe, you know, we tried a couple, and it seemed that the songs “End of Innocence” and “Dehumanized” were the ones that always went over, you know, really good.  And I was probably the one guy who was like, you know, ‘Aww man, I hope this goes over, it’s gonna be so different just playing these songs cold when no one’s heard the album.’  And you know, I was a little concerned about it, but the first couple nights, man, you know, we’re playing and the reaction was really good.  The response was really good.  And then with YouTube and everything else, the next couple shows, you know, people are singing words and know the lyrics, and they know what part’s coming up, so yeah, that was great to see.  I think with the songs we picked, it worked out well.  And then once the record [was] out, the fans were more familiar with the material and we could bust out some of the different songs on the record. It was definitely cool trying to get some of these new songs in there and see how they went over.

I’m glad to hear that; I figured that would probably be the case.  So let’s discuss Iconoclast, which came out in June.  While all Symphony X albums are expertly composed in my opinion, you guys have gone above and beyond this time in creating probably I would say the best album of your career compositionally and musically.  All the classic Symphony X elements are still there, but this one’s a little more…

Modern.

Yes, exactly.  It’s a little more modern.  It’s not a continuation of Paradise Lost; it’s a progression from it, but it’s a little more direct than some of your earlier stuff.

You know, I totally agree.  I totally agree.  It’s like, yeah, everything that you said, that’s definitely, I think with the last couple records, me being a guitar player, I think a lot more of the stuff I grew up with is kind of coming out; you know, kind of getting back to my roots.  I mean, I grew up with Sabbath and Priest and Maiden, and you know, all the classic metal stuff, so I think around the time of The Odyssey now, it’s just kind of getting back to that stuff and letting that come out more in the music.  So I think, especially Paradise Lost too, it’s definitely way more guitar driven, and it’s a little heavier, a little more aggressive, and the new album, same thing.  It’s like you said, it has elements of everything, you know.  There is a lot of the heavier stuff, and you know, there’s some progressive elements and some symphonic elements, but with this one, it was really about the songs. You know, everybody knows we can play, yeah, we can do this, we can do that, but you know, this is now at the point where its’ like, you know, we’ll put the track up and we’ll demo it, we’ll listen back, and it’s like, you know, does this song kick ass?  Is it keeping our interest?  You know, I mean, is it doing something?  And that’s where we’re at now, I think, it’s just trying to have a good variety of songs, and each song, you know, really getting in there and tweaking it and keeping it interesting.  And also with this record, too, you know, every record we try to do something a little different or try to find some underlying theme or something, and usually it starts with the music.

With The Odyssey, I remember us talking about maybe getting back to more guitar-driven kind of riffs but still have that epic thing, you know, or these orchestral things, and so, like The Odyssey is very epic and that kind of thing.  And then Paradise Lost, just by working with the Milton poem, you know, getting that heaven and hell, that ‘universe is evil’ [theme], the music is a little darker, the riffs were a little more dark and any kind of orchestral elements were a little more ominous, you know, the male choirs and things.  So I mean, I think each album has its own kind of personality.  And with this one, we decided to with this more man versus machine thing, or a technology kind of idea, and it kind of started with the music.  A lot of the early material was similar to Paradise Lost or The Odyssey, you know, the big riffs and some big choruses.  But it kind of came about, I think I had maybe four songs pretty much written early on, and you know, it was kind of typical of maybe Paradise Lost kind of sound, and I was just hanging out in my studio one day and listening to a bunch of different stuff, just kind of cleaning up or whatever the hell I was doing, and I kind of noticed some cool things in some soundtrack music I kind of was listening to.  And I think it was from the movie 300 and The Matrix too.  And especially with the 300, man, some electric guitars in there, it’s pretty gritty, man, it’s pretty mean.  And there is a lot of this modern kind of synth textures and these very distorted percussion elements and stuff, and that kind of got the wheels turning.  I started to think, yeah, we could do may be more of a mechanical kind of an idea.  So the next day, I came up with some of these original song ideas and just tried experimenting with some different textures and different things, you know, some maybe grittier guitar layering or some kind of really mechanical synth playing underneath the music.  And then it started to come, everything started to flow from there.  I thought it was pretty cool.  It was like, yeah, it sounds us, but there’s definitely more of a fresh, cool element, you know?

And that’s pretty much how this whole album all came into play.  And then from there, it was  just like, okay, let’s go with this, let’s do it.

I was going to ask you how difficult it was to work that mechanized sound into the music, but obviously it just came naturally to you.

Yeah, and I mean, it’s subtle too.  You know, I don’t want to say industrial or throw out any kind of terms, because it’s not really that; it’s still us.  It’s still Symphony X, but we used maybe subtle little textures and the whole vibe of the record has that thing and it’s something we never really did before, so we were all pretty excited too.  We could have some fun with this, you know, we could really do something different.  And just, you know, the songs progressed as we were writing and recording; we were always adding things to the music and just trying to build this record.  It was definitely a lot of fun, definitely cool.  And I think, yeah, this is what I think of the record, without question: I think every song, you know, usually on past records there’s a song or two that’s like, ‘yeah, that’s not my favorite,’ but with this record, I mean, just by the fact that we do it at my studio so I’m there 24-7 for a year, listening to this stuff, I found myself not really getting sick of it.  Every song, it was like to me, wow, that’s solid.  These songs are freaking solid.  So yeah, we’re definitely happy with this one.

One thing that I noticed when I was listening to Iconoclast, and I’ve been a Symphony X fan for about 10 years now, it was pretty exciting to hear all these little nuances, little pieces from the past albums, which is always cool for the fans to hear.  You guys have done this in the past to some extent, but it’s incredible, especially with this album, to see how much history you’ve woven into the songs, yet every song is still original.

That’s totally a cool observation, because there is some parts that maybe are reminiscent of, maybe a section from “The Accolade” from the third record.  And in the past, we might have put that idea aside, or thought it’s a little bit too much like that, but this one, it was like, we can do it.  We can have some of these different elements from all the things we’ve done, but just by incorporating some of these different sounds and making it up to date, it still sounds new.  And I think the fans who kind of are familiar, they get it.  They’re like, ‘Oh wow, it’s kind of like this but it’s not.’  Yeah, that’s definitely something we noticed too.  I think that’s just kind of letting the music happen.  If it was a section that maybe sounded like something we’ve done earlier, not exactly a copy or anything like that, but maybe had a feel of certain things, it’s like, you know, whatever, it’s us.  Let this happen and we’ll just make it cool.  We’ll make this record.

So let me ask you this.  Was the album in any way inspired by “Church of the Machine” from Twilight in Olympus?

Not really, but that was an idea for maybe the record title.  That definitely came up.  As soon as we started talking, as soon as this whole machine kind of thing came up, yeah, I mean, we were like, ‘Oh yeah, Church of the Machine, maybe that we could be the record, or maybe we could do part two’ or something like that.  But we’re like, ahh, let’s just keep it all new.  Let’s just let it be its own thing.  But yes, it’s funny that you said that, because that was out there.  That was definitely discussed a little bit.

The first time I looked through the song lyrics and I saw “Bastards of the Machine,” I wondered if that was connected.  I had to ask.

Yeah, like I said, we looked at “Church of the Machine” and thought maybe we could do that or a part two or something, but just by the nature of the whole machine thing, it’s out there, but this album is its own thing.

That’s cool.  You have “The Accolade,” which was from The Divine Wings of Tragedy, and then on The Odyssey you had “The Accolade II,” and then on this one, you’ve got “When All is Lost,” which has got some of the same elements.  Is that meant to be part of a series or just its own entity?

I think “When All is Lost,” I mean, we had so much heavy material for this record that we thought just to balance it out a little bit, to kind of have a song that was along the lines of “The Accolade,” or something a little bit more piano against the guitar, maybe a little bit more proggy, but still trying to get a really big chorus and a very full kind of sound and incorporating a little bit of some of these things we’re talking about with the production.  But yeah, I think all the records kind of always have that one or two songs that are kind of like that, and I think it kind of breaks the album up.  It kind of gives the album a little more direction.  You try to break it up and have a  song like that.

Going back to the, I hesitate to use the word theme, but the theme of Iconoclast, what are your feelings about this digital age that we’re living in?  How does that affect Symphony X and your processes, yourself as a musician?

Well, when we kind of started talking about doing this whole machine thing, man versus machine, it all started with the music.  So I think really, most of the ideas start from there.  I think doing the writing, for me, it’s like once you kind of find that thing that you think you can work with, that gives you a little bit of inspiration, and you kind of have a goal and a direction.  That really is one of the most important parts.  And then the lyrics, of course, you do the best to work in the confines of that idea or theme, which is equal.  It’s more about what you can do with the music, and you know, just kind of getting inspired.  We weren’t really thinking too crazy about any kind of method or taking it too serious or anything, just more creative ideas, you know, what can we do lyrically?  Musically, yeah, once that was set and incorporating some of those textures and things, then that was a no-brainer, man.  It just came out.  And with the lyrics, it was like pretty much anything we can find that feels like technology or machine or man, there was just so much we could do that we thought would be cool.  The song “Iconoclast” is definitely maybe more of a sci-fi or futuristic man versus machine war or battle, you know, that kind of song.  “Children of a Faceless God” kind of looks at how we worship our devices, you know, how fast these kids can text now, and how everybody interacts socially through their machines, and just kind of making observations like that.  And I mean, we thought there was a lot of different avenues to take for that.  But for us, you were saying, you know, how does it affect us, I mean, for me, we couldn’t really do a record like this one without some of this technology.  I mean, all these orchestral sections and texturing, it’s all software, and all the recording stuff nowadays too, it’s all computer-based.  It’s definitely an important part of the music production process, so yeah, it’s like anything.  There’s good things and bad things, you know?  The internet and piracy, it’s like, yeah, it’s definitely a bad thing, but at the same time, you know, being able to be creative with almost no limitations is, for me, it’s great.  And some of the software out there now is just so friggin’ state of the art.  I’m always trying to keep my studio up to date with all the latest gadgets and software.  I always try to make the orchestra sound as realistic as possible and the choirs, and all these textures, it’s kind of cool and modern.  You know, there’s just so much to do.  There are so many different things, it’s definitely a lot of fun.  And that’s a positive with this whole technology thing.  Like I said, there’s always good and bad things about everything.

Yep, it’s a blessing and it’s a curse sometimes.

Yep.

I’m going to shift gears a little bit and ask you some non-important, non-album questions.  What are you listening to these days?

Oh, man, so much.  Usually when I’m just kind of at home hanging out, I’ll listen to random stuff.  I have so much, so many different kinds of music in my player, but it’s all this stuff I grew up with: the old Sabbath, and Priest and old Ozzy, Randy Rhoads, god, so much shit.  Pantera, a lot of classical music.  I listen to so many different things.  I like a lot of film music, you know.  Jeez, there’s just so much.  So I can’t even narrow it down, because I just have so much stuff and I love it all.  But usually I go back the stuff that man, that’s close to me.  The stuff that got me, like guitar playing, the old classic metal stuff.

Right on.  And here’s my last and completely silly question: how difficult is it to be in a band with two other guys who have the same first name?

[Laughs]  It actually is easy, because we have little waves of, you know, I’ve always just been Mike.  And then Pinnella has always been P, just P.  And LePond is just LePond, so it’s easy, you know?

[Laughs]  That works.

Everybody, they just know.  Everybody around us knows the deal so there’s never any confusion.  It’s like, ‘Hey, what’s up P?’  So we know they’re talking to Pinnella.  So that’s just the way that it is; it’s never an issue.

I always wondered that.  Like I said, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.  I got to see you guys once, back in 2003, you played in Omaha at this weird place called the Ranch Bowl.

Oh god, I don’t remember.

Well, it was a very, very odd place.  They had a bowling alley in the same venue.

Oh, wait, were we with Devin Townsend?

Yeah, with Devin Townsend.

I do remember that place.  Yeah, that was kind of unusual [laughs].

It was unusual, but I’m glad I got to see you guys and meet you all afterwards.  Hopefully I can meet up with you again sometime.

Oh definitely.  We’ll be back in the States.  We’ll be around.  Hopefully we’ll see you.

Right on.  Thanks again.

Thank you.

www.symphonyx.com
www.nuclearblast.de

Maturation is inevitable with any long running band, and it’s apparent upon listening to Iconoclast that Symphony X has made aggression a staple in their repertoire. 2002’s The Odyssey was the beginning of the band’s journey into darker, more muscular territory, which they expanded upon with 2007’s Paradise Lost. But with Iconoclast, they’ve constructed even more of a precise, heavy hitting sound than ever heard before, while still maintaining the classic emotive sensibilities unique to Symphony X tunes.

“Iconoclast” is the quintessential modern Symphony X song, replete with a maze of clean riffs, commanding vocals, and a killer chorus. It’s also the point where listeners begin to hear subtle nuances from past albums creeping in, borrowing a bit from “Evolution (The Grand Design),” a masterfully crafted track from V: The New Mythology Suite. Likewise, “The End of Innocence” brings in Michael Romeo’s signature neoclassical guitar work, but blends it with an overall more straightforward vibe and, yet again, a powerful, soaring chorus.

Personal favorite “Bastards of the Machine” rips with a quick gallop and guitar/keyboard face-offs that hearken back to the days of Twilight in Olympus, where listeners got their first taste of man-meets-mechanism in “Church of the Machine.” The less quick but equally intense “Children of a Faceless God” leans on a groovier, heavier note, one that’s at times a bit more sinister than one would expect from Symphony X. And “When All is Lost,” Iconoclast’s version of the Symphony X opus, balances emotion, melody and intensity effortlessly, nodding to epics from The Divine Wings of Tragedy.

Always evolving as musicians and songwriters, the members of Symphony X continue to push themselves and the bounds of the group’s material, constantly seeking to create passionately crafted and uniquely intelligent music, and Iconoclast is their crowning glory. It is the band’s boldest, most fleshed out release to date, one that’s bound to grace year end lists and become a favorite in Symphony X’s impressive catalog. Symphony X have definitely hit their stride and seem incapable of writing sub-par material.