Projektor. Red Wolf Glass. They're not on the Projekt label, as their bandname implies, but they'd have to be either goth or metal, right? The first song, "Foxfire," proves me wrong in a flash. Guitar, bass, Moog and drums all kick in at once-- one big sonic blast a la Rush's "Tom Sawyer." And like Rush, Projektor are Canadian, but this is more like Our Lady Peace after being run over by the Catherine Wheel. Ouch! Singer Jahmeel opens his mouth right away, lungs bellowing to match the guitar. "I played you a love song/ But you couldn't hear the words," pines the chorus. Not surprisingly, it's a loud song. College radio, here we come.

Time to surf the web and see if I can find some more information. www.projektor.nu turns out to be the wrong site: "THIS IS THE HOME OF LOGOS. YOU WILL FIND A LOT OF INTERNATIONAL LOGOS TO DOWNLOAD FOR PERSONAL USE. I LOVE BRANDS, MULTIINTERNATIONAL COMPANIES AND GLOBAL ECONOMY. DO NOT SAY NO LOGO AS NAOMI KLEIN, SAY YO LOGO AND LETS BRAND THE WORLD!" Fuckwit. He ought to be branded with Jahmeel's voice, which makes my skin crawl after overexposure. That's the origin of the term, you know: you get the sign of your master seared into your ass. And like all good advertising, you can't escape it: I just skipped through all eight tracks, and thirty seconds into each, the whine intrudes. No modulation, just "whehhh!" It's a shame, and one that reminds me of Dream Theater, another band that might have been better without the putrid, searing vocals.

Okay, Dream Theater is hideous neo-prog for Russian art students and Yngwie Malmsteen aficionados. The comparison stands: mediocre music ruined entirely by an overblown singer. At least Projektor are ambitious. "Continental" speeds up the bass pattern of Radiohead's "(Nice Dream)" as Jahmeel sings about "Promises, tag team/ A pact with the devil/ Caffeine, sickness/ We'll talk about this later." This is the "ballad." Seriously, Projektor are genuinely good at writing ballads. E-bowed rhythm guitars hum, cymbals crash in all the right places, and the bass fills in the gaps with deep reverb. These guys are so good at ballads, in fact, that they wrote six variations on the same one. As a consolation, guitarist Dustin takes lead vocals on "Blue Ocean" ("where he slept on a beach of pure emotion," apparently). His tenor is so much more bearable, and likewise, this is the only song that sounds different than the others. No wall o' sound, just guitar chords that chime in on the upbeat. Pleasant alternapop.

People like to accuse Pitchfork reviewers of slagging off on genres they don't appreciate. Stand back, because I'm about to drop some science. A Projektor song schematic for your approval: intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, chorus/outro. "Foxfire," 3:20-- solo of trilling notes a la guitar school 202. "The Warm Winter," 3:20-- guitar breakdown! Oh shit, they changed it up-- 2:30 signals the brief jam on "Double Dragon." No Nintendo baddies here, but a bestiary of the creatures that appear on the album is enlightening: cat, spider, wolf, sheep, great white, werewolf, dragon, devil. Projektor: where you're never too far from prog!

Every smiley hack I could find on the net had a one-paragraph review with nothing but praise for these guys. I feel more like the jaded television host who has to promote the product but manages to make sarcastic comments anyway. Imagine an acidic Alex Trebek aside: "These four fellows from Winnipeg made a good effort, but ultimately didn't fare well enough to make it to Final Jeopardy. Good luck on your next projekt!" But I can't rip on Projektor too hard (a bit late, admittedly) because they're decent enough at what they do, which is make a bunch of earnest rock songs with tight rhythms. Still, this is a musical field that's not only been plowed through before by better bands, but its bent roots have been tainted through the generations and the soil is barren.

In a recent interview, Jahmeel said he was initially disappointed that all these songs turned out to have the same time signature. He should have listened to his conscience. Too bad it was trapped... behind the Red Wolf Glass!

-Christopher Dare