Looking for a shred-a-licious mindless wankfest à la neo-classical metal? If not, you'd better skip this album review. José del Río's Journey into the Fourth Dimension is an instrumental shredfest that succeeded reminding me of my early recordings when I had only played guitar for one year... yep, back then I used to play neo-classical metal and thought that speed is important - how little did I know. Well, back to Chilean axeslinger José L. del Río's album. This record features the notorious Vitalij Kuprij (Artension) and multi-award winning Soprano Pilar Aguilera among others, so I had my doubts regarding the material before even hearing the first track (I've never been a fan of Vitalij Kuprij's work).

Journey into the Fourth Dimension is just what one can expect from the musicians featured on this record - patchy compositions with some good ideas here and there, but they occur so seldom that they're quite easy to miss... for the most part, the material is patchwork-like and most songs don't sound finished at all. Overall, the musical offering of this album isn't too impressive, expect for the references to classical music. If I had to name some highlights, I guess I would mention Oriental Fantasy and Nel Mezzo del Cammin.

Production on this record is fairly weak... First and foremost, the really cheap-sounding distorted guitars are quite horrendous. I can't believe this has been even published through a label, since most demos that bands send us are a lot better sounding. Well the other instruments on comparison sound OK (for example, clean guitar sounds are adequate). In addition, the material didn't get distorted so Mika Jussila of Finnvox handled his part well. As a whole, I wouldn't recommend this album to anyone straight-off... it sounds unfinished and rough around the edges, so one should give it a listen before purchasing (just to ensure it definitely is your cup of tea). This is actually one of the few records that I wouldn't have wanted to listen to again, but for the sake of the review I had to cope with it.


- MAGE (August 6th, 2006)

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LINE-UP:
L. del Río, José: Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar, Electric Coral Sitar, Electric Bass (Fretted & Fretless), Midi Sequencing Guest Musicians: Cerda, Marco: Drums and VDrum. Kuprij, Vitalij: All keyboards and Acoustic Piano, Synth Bass and Drums on "Epic Dramatic" for Electric Guitar & Keyboards Aguilera, Pilar & Rosselot. Bernardo: Vocals on "Nel Mezzo del Cammin" Porflitt, Felipe: Keyboard solos on "Journey into the Fourth Dimension" Rojas, Juan Francisco: Recorder on "Battlefields of Glory" and "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules" Choir Aguilera, Pilar Domínguez, Constaza Muñoz, Jenny Yañez, Claudia Rosselot, Bernardo Moya, Cristián
Producer:	L. del Río, José
Mixing by:	Pinto, Andrés "Beto" & L. del Río, José
Mastering by:	Jussila, Mika

	TRACKLIST:
	01. Introduction 02. Phantom Shadows 03. Battlefields of Glory 04. Oriental Fantasy 05. Through the Darkness 06. Dremas of Wizdom and Prophecy 07. "Epic Dramatic" for Electric Guitar and Keyboards 08. Psychophony 09. Journey into the Fourth Dimension 10. Nel Mezzo del Cammin 11. Beyond the Pillars of Hercules 12. Flight of the Bumblebee (Bonus Track) Length: 58:45