Inner Odyssey – Have a seat

Canadian band Inner Odyssey was formed in 2007, but it wasnt until 2010 that founder Vincent Leboeuf Gadreau managed to finalise the lineup.  Inner Odyssey signed with Unicorn records to release their debut album – Have a seat.

Musically I suppose Prog metal is probably the most suitable description, but that doesn’t give the full picture.

The album starts with three tracks – Light Years away, parts 1,2, and 3.  The first is an instrumental track that has a Pink Floyd kind of feel to it with it’s swirling gentle melodies plus some very nice guitar work.  The second blends seamlessly with the first track and the keyboards lead nicely into the ballad style section of the track.
It’s not until the third part that you encounter the metal side of Inner Odyssey as the guitars kick in with more power and the vocals toughen up and begin to sound more like Metallica’s James Hetfield.  Despite this things aren’t a complete shift – there’s still the keyboards giving it a prog feel and keeping that link to the previous two tracks.

The album is well over an hour in length, with three of the tracks each being over 10 minutes long, so it’s good value, especially given the quality of the songs.

The album gives you a really nice blend of metal and prog with enough of a metal sound to keep metal fans happy but with enough of a Prog  sound to also keep Prog fans happy.  A really good album.

‘Have a seat’ is out now.

Rating: 8/10

Track listing:

1. Light years away: Part 1 – Tides of fate
2. Light years away: Part 2 – Shades of heaven
3. Light years away: Part 3 – Distant illusion
4. Blank sheet syndrome
5. Sinking (The journey of sin part 1)
6. Part of her
7. Grazed, haunted & besmirched
8. The meaning of dying (The journey of sin part 2)
9. Dehumanize me

Inner Odyssey are:

Vincent Leboeuf Gadreau – Guitar
Pier-Luc Garand Dion – Vocals
Simon Gourdeau – Bass
Etienne Doyon – Drums
Matthieu Chamberland – Keyboards