Enchant - "The New Progressive Rock Gods?!" Page 3
by Martin Popoff

"With respect to the last album Break, we're working with many of the same influences, but we allowed those influences to penetrate the bubble. Earlier on, there were a lot of new bands coming into our frame of mind like Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters, Soundgarden. So when we were doing Break, I think that was there. And you know, everybody was trying to blend styles and to me, not doing it very well, Queensryche especially. But we tried to do it, and that's really where Break came from. With Juggling, I found there was more of a pop sensibility to the material and less of the grunge type sound Break sort of had. The songs lyrically and melodically seemed to have more of a pop sensibility. That's really why they're shorter and more precise."

One other very cool thing about Juggling is that even though it is bright, snappy and complicated, it isn't faked and baked on Pro Tools like way too many records these days right across the spectrum, including deeply into death metal.

"I'm pretty computer savvy and so is Paul (ed. Craddick, drums)," notes Ott. "He's actually a website design, but we don't use any computer stuff. Everything, this whole album was done on ADATs." No Pro Tools? "No, no, I don't use anything like that. I like the sound of tape, for some reason. Musically, I really liked the blend we used with acoustics, some of the different styles we tried to pull in, like the little Latin section in 'Bite My Tongue', or the reggae feel in the verses of 'Rough Draft'."

Looking into some of these songs, one finds themes that are heavy yet expertly handled, resulting in vignettes that aren't unwieldy despite their intelligent portrayals. Doug gives us a quick thematic tour of the entire album (incidentally, the wildly artistic limited edition digipak version of this album includes similar printed explanations to these that follow, as well as an eloquent band history by James Bickers).

Enchant - "The New Progressive Rock Gods?!" Page 4