TECHNICAL MUSIC REVIEW
Fire Garden is the featured Band of the month for May! If you have been following along, I let the general public decide who I should feature for the month of May…..starting with 10 bands in the first week of voting, 5 in the second week and then the remaining 3 I let run for over a week. Damn, does Fire Garden have some relentless and dedicated fans. They received 26 votes of the 40 placed the final week, Divinex and Inanimate Existence splitting the remaining 14 votes evenly at 7 per piece. Not even close! So, with the large amount of participation and interest for the site that is barely off it’s feet I was awfully impressed with the voting numbers it was far from a waste of time. One of the months during the fall, I am going to run another public vote the same exact way. Congratulations to my friends in FG who are some awfully cool dudes, to boot.
Fire Garden is a progressive rock band from Chicago that is the pride and joy of guitarist/vocalist Zee Baig. Rounding out his live lineup is guitar wizard Allen Ladis, bass sensation Marc Malitz and drumming expert Bill Kiser. The band made the trip to the Evening Star Concert Hall last summer with Tiles from Detroit. Dave from Turning Virtue put on the show and had all 3 bands play the same evening. The same man also told me about Fire Garden earlier last year before he put the show on in the summer….Davey K has some great ears, folks (that’s a running theme, isn’t it?). Fire Garden put on an energetic show to close out that evening…..if you ever get a chance do NOT miss their live show!
The band’s first album “Sound Of Majestic Colors” was a great debut album. It was heavily influenced by Dream Theater and Pink Floyd. There was a different vocalist that was the gravy on top. However, on the critically acclaimed follow up album “Far And Near” (that won a barrage of awards for a newer band) was a lot more personal and had Zee’s melancholic and emotional touch on the record. It also featured him singing lead vocals as well not just the songwriter. He rounded together an insane group of artists who believed in his vision and music…Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater’s keyboard player), Jimmy Keegan(ex Spock’s Beard drummer), Mixed by Bruce Soord (The Pineapple Thief) and the Artwork by the infamous Travis Smith (he’s done artwork for countless bands).
Fire Garden was nominated by progrock.com as Chicago’s best band of 2017. Want some more accolades? Last year the band received a glowing review of Far and Near in Prog magazine (Progressive rock/metal version of Rolling Stone)! Zee is already working on a a follow up to Far And Near…..which in my opinion is an extremely tough task. I loved the emotion of the album from start to finish. Zee’s voice is unique and adds originality to his band that is constantly evolving. I for one am extremely excited to hear what comes of Fire Garden 3 (I’m just gonna call it that until details are released!).
Fire Garden has a show this month, actually. They are opening up for Cloud Zero, a band who pays tribute to Porcupine Tree. If you live near Chicago, the trip will be more than worth it! May 26th @ Q Bar
When the keyboard wizard believes in an artist…..you listen to him. Check back in all month for everything Fire Garden!
http://www.firegardenmusic.com
Originally published on Technical Music Review. Republished with permission.
