This photo is way too hard to crop. The flowers on the right are part of Klaus Engl’s shirt.

Background Information

Little seems to be known about 7 for 4, even though they are more than an average band. Maybe it’s just some kind of personal inability to google their material correctly, but it seems that even North American versions of Amazon (amazon.com and amazon.ca) don’t carry them. The band describes itself as a metal/rock/jazz fusion mix, and listening to two of their albums (Contact and Time) makes me agree with them. I would add that many would classify them as a progressive band too, and I couldn’t oppose that view. Having no idea which of both albums I liked the most, I decided to review both of them.

The band consists of Wolfgang Zenk on Guitars, Markus Grützner on Bass, Klaus Engl on Drums and Markus Froschmeier on Keyboards, a group of little known musicians (Not exactly, as many of them played in other bands, but let’s say they are not big public names anyone would know) who outperform eachother on every piece of their albums.

Contact

Track list

1. X-Dreams
2. Tokamak
3. La Provence
4. E-Gyptian
5. Highlands
6. Rushian
7. Rockalaxy
8. Catking
9. Subspace Distortion

Genre

Metal, rock, fusion

Release

October 22, 2001

Label

MGI Records (KDC)

My Opinion

Contact starts up with X-dream, a slow intro played on Grützner’s fretless bass, while Froschmeier complements with keyboards, until Zenk kicks in. About a minute in, the song starts with a strong emotional melody enriched by Engl’s accentuations on drums, a bit of a surprise, but a good example of what’s to come.

Songs like Tokamak instantly change the mood with an approach flirting with symphonic metal led by keyboards and guitar. The guitar could remind you of Bumblefoot’s more aggressive stuff, the keyboards of what FROST* pulled a few years ago with “Milliontown” mixed with some old-school progressive, while the bass sounds like a mix of Liquid Tension Experiment and Spiral Architect to my ear. As soon as you get used to the song, it stops, and you fall back down to smoother stuff like La Provence.

E-Gyptian has got a really Latin sound as an intro (which makes it a more striking piece), and then you get surprised by stronger metal coming back at it. Don’t throw your pinkie and index fingers in the air too fast though, because the song rapidly turns into a metal-Latin-metal-Latin duel to finish, until funk kicks in at some point. The amazing thing is they manage to do it effortlessly, without exactly interrupting the flow. This song alone could be a good example of the whole thing.

This kind of pattern repeats itself for most of the record, and listening to the album, you definitely know it’s going to be a never ending game of style switching, in a smooth manner, far from what Mike Patton or John Zorn would set you for, which is all to its advantage from an accessibility viewpoint. Readers who tend to go for metal should look Contact up before Time, in my opinion.

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Time

Track list

1. Zeitgeist
2. TempERAmento
3. Where Are You Now
4. 7:44 a.m.
5. Time (Chapter I)
6. Rock’n'Rolex
7. Perpetuum Mobile
8. Time (Chapter II)
9. Flux Capacitor
10. Burnt Chicken Wings
11. Slow [e]Motion

Genre

Metal, rock, fusion

Release

April 5, 2004

Label

MGI Record (KDC)

My Opinion

Time begins with a way more jazzy sound when compared to contact, but the ‘duels’ with a more aggressive sound still subsist, thankfully. In my own opinion, it seems like there was more work put into Time as far as musicianship goes.

While it is still very guitar-oriented, it would be a shameful lie to say it’s the only thing there is to listen to: While Zenk’s guitar playing is hard to compare to anything, Engl’s percussions are surprising, extremely dynamic and changing, exactly what you’d wait from a true fusion drummer; Markus Froschmeier does an outstanding work at sharing the limelight with Zenk (like in Time (Chapter I)) and then keeping himself away from it when needed, a great work for the overall balance. To top it off, Grützner’s bass is far away from anything mediocre, going well above the basics to play around the complex structure with an ease making it look like he’s warming up.

Although time keeps the roots of Contact alive, it covers a broader spectrum of styles and is richer all around. A step above it’s older brother from 2001, may it be for the balance between instruments, some melodies, or just the general sound. Time, at times, really feels like Liquid Tension Experiment decided to try themselves at fusion and brilliantly succeeded. It’s really up there with the big names, an album that anyone who like these genres should give an ear to.

Conclusion

7 For 4 is a definitive must to anyone who likes both metal (mainly the symphonic kind), jazz and/or prog variations of both. If you tend more toward metal, go for contact, otherwise, go for Time. I’m still trying to get my hands on “Diffusion”, which got released on January 25 and will review it as soon as possible. 7 For 4 really impressed me, end of the line.

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Category: Reviews