Band: Jupiter Society

CD Title: “Terraform”

Label: ProgRock Records

Label Website: www.progrockrecords.com

Release Date: 2009

Heads-up…the Jupiter Society are back with the next part of their on-going musical project and its entitled Terraform. You will perhaps remember the Jupiter Society being a creation of Carl Westholm (keyboards), known to many as one-half of the band Carptree. Once again Chairman Westholm (it is a ‘society’ after all) has surrounded himself with a diverse and somewhat different set of ‘board members’ from other projects and bands such as Royal Hunt, Candlemass, Krux, Therion, Roxette, Tiamat and others. It’s an impressive cast and the end result is yet another stirring heavy symphonic masterpiece.

The music on Terraform comes in the form of 7 longish tracks most around the seven or eight minute length and to make the point again this is heavy symphonic prog at its best. The proceedings get off to a fine start with “New Universe” [9:01] the intro consisting of a spacey tentative ‘beacon-like’ synth before roiling guitars fill the air with a dramatic arpeggio and then the vocals complete the introduction to the piece. It does have a distinct mix of Carptree and Therion. Heavily melodic and heavily operatic and yet packed with nuance and complexities. Then, a couple minutes into the piece, things pull back to a moody interlude before Mats Leven returns for some subdued vocals to set the stage. Then he moves into the song’s next segment with the vocal line ‘I miss my life…’ featuring one of the highest and sharpest vocal attacks that just sends tingles up and down your spine. It’s absolutely brilliant! The lush orchestration goes from full on assault to more restrained atmospherics time and time again. There’s really no need to describe more of the tracks because this same compositional feel runs throughout the disc. The music on Terraform, is hugely dramatic, with many powerful low gut wrenching chords and plenty of finely tuned synth string arrangements providing a perfect contrast. Add to all this massed choirs of vocals and you have a musical production of epic proportions. How could you not love this?

As I said with the release of their previous disc, if you are a Carptree fan but looking for something perhaps a little more complex and involved and maybe a little heavier, look no further because Jupiter Society. These guys have truly set the bar pretty high when it comes to heavy symphonic projects. A massive story told in grand symphonic fashion. Terraform is a worthy sequel and gets my solid recommendation.