When you hear the word Progressive applied to any style of music, be it Rock, Metal, or otherwise; there tends to be this expectation among most for something that bends the rules, but doesn’t necessarily break them in any overt way.  This might be largely due to the level of orthodoxy that has crept its way into many mainline Progressive Rock and Metal outfits from their early roots in the 1970s up until today.  You expect odd time signatures, some non-conventional sounds, and maybe even some cross pollination between genres, but alongside all of that should be a sort of standardizing force, usually in the form of regular song structures or some sort of thematic commonality between all of the songs contained in a given album.

TADASHI GOTO’s latest album “Innervisions” takes the road less traveled and doesn’t merely break the rules, but does so in such a direct way that the only possible result from a first listen can be an utter state of vertigo.  All of the ambient keyboard lines, seemingly random samples and sounds, superimposed on top of a plethora of stylistic switches between songs make little beyond a jaded impression of what this is attempting to be possible.  It’s almost as if GOTO has managed through all of the Jazz, Dance and Rock music influences to travel to that once believed unreal quadrant of the known universe where 2+2 actually equals 5.  And this holds true even for would be standard instrumental ballads like “Inner Circle”, which colors a fairly plain chord progression with so many sampled sounds and World Music additives that anything simplistic about it is distorted to the point of being unrecognizable.

The principle focal point of this album is essentially that it doesn’t have one.  You go through a barrage of influences, sometimes as clear as mid-90s DREAM THEATER, at other times venturing into the quirky territory heard on JENNIFER BATTEN’s latest release.  “The Deepest Depression” largely sounds like an Industrial Rock/Metal song with a set of dance beats and a lot of Jordan Rudess influenced keyboard detailing.  “The Darkest Years” has sort of a “The Matrix Movie Soundtrack” meets NEVERMORE’s “This Godless Endeavor” style of metallic edge to it, and is the most riff driven song on here.  Other songs go down even more bizarre routes, occasionally putting forth surreal keyboard sounds, slap bass acrobatics, or anything else that could be considered either virtuoso oriented or musically untraditional.  The only thing that is constant through the whole listen is a continued preference towards synthetic and digital sounds as opposed to acoustics.

Despite being an entertaining listen, the deeply progressive and avant-garde nature of this proves to be a double edged sword, as was the case with BATTEN’s latest release and on a few albums put out by STEVE VAI a while back.  The music just gets too bogged down in all of the special effects that it comes almost as a novelty act at times, particularly on slow keyboard driven songs like “Flow Like Water”.  GOTO is a brilliant guitarist and if he spent more time emphasizing his forte, rather than experimenting with all of the off-kilter sound equipment, this would be a certified classic rather than simply being an above average album.  If you go in Progressive musical directions, this will probably catch your interest, but the scope of its accessibility is fairly limited.   

(Online October 23, 2008)