Hourglass - "Voids and Visions"

I waited fifteen years...for THIS?

I cannot accurately illustrate how close I was to giving up on seeing another Hourglass album. Their last album was released in 2009, and they are not a group that is well known or easily researched.

For those who are deep into the Prog Metal scene, Hourglass is known for epic and melodic Prog tracks in the vein of Dream Theater, with other strong influences being acts like Rush, Fates Warning, and Threshold. Though, I have to add that they’ve never had the polish of any of those; there’s always a certain rawness to Hourglass’ production value. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it,¹ there was this growing sense through the aughts that Hourglass might ultimately become one of the genre’s top bands — and then they just disappeared.

Until 2022. Out of the blue² comes this 25-minute monster of a single, “Void Within”, which is now the opening song of the band’s fourth LP, Voids and Visions. And that’s only the first 25-minute track on the album; the closer matches it. The other two tracks are 14 and 13 minutes in length.

This is fairly standard for Hourglass’ approach. If you’re a fan of long-form music, you’ll find plenty to throw yourself into here (and in their older discography).³ And there’s plenty of narrative variety, too, from political commentary (which I do not necessarily agree with) on “The Hammer’s Strike”⁴ to incredible and emotional storytelling over the course of “Exit Wounds”.⁵ And that’s just Subconscious.

Given Hourglass’ preference for epic-length songs, it makes sense that it takes them years to write albums (at least this one and 2009’s Oblivious to the Obvious). I have yet to find hard numbers, but given that they released the first song two years before the full album, and that was also probably a year or more in the making for the one track, it’s safe to assume 3-5 years of work have gone into this album.

Which is why it’s really unfortunate that it doesn’t show.

While the songs do have several shifts and decent melodic moments, it’s really hard to pick out any truly memorable moments or sections. There’s no payoff anywhere. Each member of the band is proficient, and listening to strictly guitar or bass or keys or drums will readily make the skill of that member obvious. It just doesn’t always mesh. And, with rare exception, I’m finding it easy to tune out and get distracted.

Especially with vocals. No offense to Yahosh Bonner, but I don’t think he’s a good fit for Hourglass; or maybe Brick Williams didn’t really take the time to figure out Bonner’s voice before writing the vocal lines in the exact same vocal style as each of the previous Hourglass albums. And, allow me to be clear, Hourglass has always had the same vocal style, but never the same vocalist twice:

• This Lonely Time and Place - Jon Shumway

• The Journey Into - Chad Neth

• Subconscious - Cody Walker

• Oblivious to the Obvious - Michael Turner

• Voids and Visions - Yahosh Bonner

Five albums, five vocalists. I don’t know the story, but it seems like it’s likely nothing to brag about. What I do know is that we need more POC in the Metal community, and I really hate having to single out Bonner here. I would love to see him try out with a different band whose sound suits him better. Mostly with fewer high notes.

If there’s a standout on the album, it’s the basswork by Brian Hancock. It definitely fits the mold for the style of bass I expect from an Hourglass release, but Hancock really makes it pop. In those instances where I’ve tuned out, it’s often the bass that my ear catches to pull me back in.

Brick’s guitar lines are also very solid. He has a couple of decent solos throughout, but they are also largely lost in the monotony of the rest of the tracks.

Voids and Visions isn’t a total bust, but it’s largely a disappointing effort. I suspect the long hiatus took its toll on the band. After all, only two members of the band that created Oblivious to the Obvious have returned for Voids and Visions: Brick and drummer John Dunston (and those are both founding members!).⁶

Here’s hoping that if the band stays active, they can build the songwriting skills back up again.

And maybe they won’t use AI for their next album cover. That’d be great, too.

Rating: Yellow

PS — as a final note, since the review, itself, doesn’t work for a Christmas gift, Hourglass have put out a couple of metal Christmas instrumentals over the last could of years: “God Rest Ye Merry Metal Men” and “Silver Metal Bells”. They’re solid.

1. Too much polish in production is off-putting to some listeners, especially in genres like rock, metal, and folk, whose listeners might prefer their records to sound closer to what the act would sound like in a live performance.

2. In researching for this review, I’ve found their Facebook page. And that seems to be my biggest issue in keeping up with them, as that’s apparently where they’re most active???

3. I should note that some of their longer tracks in their older discography have been broken out into individual tracks for separate movements on streaming services. On Subconcious, for example, “Mists of Darkness” is now three tracks and “Exit Wounds” was broken out into seven separate songs. So while the album was originally five tracks, it now shows as thirteen.

4. The song largely attacks corruption in America’s judicial system, which is even more of an issue now given the ruling in Snyder v United States and the increased partisan politicization of the judicial system, at large, and SCOTUS, in particular. However, “The Hammer Strikes” also includes lyrics which attack the presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial by vilifying defense lawyers. Its glorification of the law can be readily perceived as ‘boot-licking’.

It is still a fantastic song. I’ve just had to be a little more realistic with it in more recent years.

5. This link should take you to a playlist and start at “Farewell”, which is the first movement of “Exit Wounds”. The suite tells the story of a soldier who goes off to war and dies, then focuses in on how that affects various members of his family (son, daughter, father, and wife, in that order).

6. There’s also the issue of the band being based in Utah and sourcing their talent from the LDS community. ‘Mormon’ and ‘Metal’ are both words that start with ‘M’, but that’s the only place I expect them to really come together easily.