Withem singer (progpower USA XV band)

[Bryant]

I'll do a full review later, but wanted to add this......

The band Withem started the main show of the PPUSA festival. I didn't know but one song from this band and only because it was a youtube video posted on the PPUSA website. They are prog and not really my thing for the most part, but I thought the singer sounded pretty good on the video. That singer was REALLY, REALLY good live. As far as vocal style, he is not high on my list. I would much rather listen to Pagan's Mind for example. However, he was the best of the whole festival as far as nailing every note (being a musician, I am picky about stuff like that) without being sharp or flat much.
Given the fact they are a prog band where he is having to sing in some odd keys at times makes it even more impressive. It is one of those rare occasions where the songwriting, nor energy level was particularly excellent (and he was actually pretty entertaining considering their style) but his musicianship was at an elite level and I really appreciated it. Kudos to[COLOR=rgb51, 51, 51][FONT='lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif] Ole Aleksander Wagenius (singer[/FONT][/COLOR],) and the rest of Withem for putting on a nice show.

Bryant

 

[Wyvern]

Whitem is among those new prog bands (including Pain of Salvation, Porcupine Tree, Leprous, Wolverine, TesseracT and more)that BORES me beyond any possible redeemable situation.

Very much the reason I skip this year as the roster was ugly as heaven.

Any 70's prog rock band has more balls on a bad day than any of those bands in its entire discography. I still don't get what Glenn sees in those when he can book good stuff like The Flower Kings, Karmakanic, Cosmos, Twinspirits, Adramelch, Helreidh, Manigance, Semantic Saturation, Scale The Summit to call some names (I agree the last ones are kind of dense but at least ballsy).

 

[Bryant]

Whitem is among those new prog bands (including Pain of Salvation, Porcupine Tree, Leprous, Wolverine, TesseracT and more)that BORES me beyond any possible redeemable situation.

I actually agree with you Brother Vern. Unless they change their songwriting style, I have NO interest in them as well. I think I made that clear in my first post. The point I was trying to make was that the singer was brilliant. In fact, he was by far the best at reproducing their recorded music.

Bryant

 

[Wyvern]

I actually agree with you Brother Vern. Unless they change their songwriting style, I have NO interest in them as well. I think I made that clear in my first post. The point I was trying to make was that the singer was brilliant. In fact, he was by far the best at reproducing their recorded music.

Bryant

Clarification understood, point taken.

 

[Bryant]

Clarification understood, point taken.

I don't mean to beat a dead horse......... we all like what we like. I don't care much for Withem, but after hearing the singer live, it made me realize it was the style/band's songwriting that I didn't care for, not him as a musician. If he joins another band or Withem learns how to write songs that makes more musical sense in my ears, that guy can bring it !! It isn't one of those things that he is some technical monster, it is simply that he was practically always in key and had great volume control as well. Very professional !!
There were many singers at PPUSA that I liked much better on disc, but they could not reproduce their recorded efforts nearly as well, live. They also didn't have to sing in weird proggy keys.

Bryant