Factory of Dreams A Strange Utopia
by Franco Wissa
Staff Writer
Factory of Dreams, with multi-instrumentalist Hugo Flores playing guitar, bass, keyboards and just about everything else, offers their sophomore effort, A Strange Utopia. Taking a heavier, fuller and more a musical approach than their debut, Poles, A Strange Utopia truly showcases the immense talent that Hugo Flores is.
For instance, a listen to “The Weight of the World,” is over the top with guitar solos, bass and piano riffs throughout. The piano of “Sonic Sensations,” the multi-layered vocals heard on the haunting “Garden of All Seasons,” the strange sound effects of “Dark Utopia,” the beautiful “Slow Motion World,” the delicious, evil bass guitar licks and the mid track guitar solo of “Chaotic Order,” the distorted hard rocking guitars of Destructible Destruction,” and the majestic and epic “Broken,” show the world that Hugo Flores is a master of bringing to the surface orchestral laden progressive metal.
Vocalist Jessica Lehto is an incredible singer, whose voice soars above the music, reaching into octaves that are dumbfounding. Selecting her as this project’s vocalist was a perfect choice as she excellently compliments this type of metal.
While this CD did take a few spins to be able to appreciate what is heard, what was evident right away from the opening bars of the first track is that care and passion that Hugo Flores has for this type of music. Almost as if taking cues from Nightwish, Epica and in some ways, Lacuna Coil, Factory of Dreams, does have a lot to offer the progressive metal world. One has to wonder however, that instead of using a drum machine to provide the backbeat, what a drummer of Mike Terrana’s caliber would do for this band. As hard hitting as Mike is, his powerhouse drumming style may have really given hard rocking tracks like “The Road Around Saturn,” and “E-Motions,” the thunderous sounds that these rockers really could use.
It has been said that too much liberty on each of these tracks was used by Hugo Flores. And to some degree that is true. Time and again during the tenure of A Strange Utopia’s playing time, the listener is bombarded with layers and layers of music. It seems that Flores has compacted as much as possible into each track. While some of these tracks benefited from this, (“Broken,” “Inner Station,”) as the dimensions of sound amplified the particular’s tracks feeling and message, on a few of the tracks, the opposite was true, so much sound, while the musicianship was as impressive as heard anywhere, so much music got in the way of being able to enjoy the tracks overall vibe and voices, (‘Weight of the World,” “Vacation in Venus.”)
End result, again, is while in moments it was a bit much, this is a CD where the sound was crisp, and the mastering done to a science and Hugo Flores has once again shown the progressive metal world why he is undoubtedly considered one of the best around. His ear for bringing this type of music is like few others possess. It is a hope that he continues to bring to the progressive metal world more projects like Factory of Dreams.
Label: ProgRock Records
Track Listing:
Voyage to Utopia
The Weight of the World
Inner Station
Sonic Sensations
The Road Around Saturn
Garden of All Seasons
Dark Utopia
Vacation in Venus
Chaotic Order
Slow Motion World
Destructible Destruction
E-Motions
Broken
Musicians:
Jessica Lehto – vocals
Hugo Flores – guitars, bass, keyboards, vocals, percussion
HRH Rating: 7/10