CONTAGION – THE ADVENTURE
Cage Listening Session – 14 September 2002

It’s not easy. You know Contagion is fully completed but you have to wait until you can actually hear it. You look forward to the release date and the curiosity increases day by day. It is, therefore, a major disappointment when you then hear that you’ll have to wait until January 2003. 

Hopefully an elaborate preview can soften it a bit. John, Clive and Paddy came to the Netherlands for an extensive listening session with the Cage people. After everybody had found a spot in the room (except for John and Clive who remained, visibly tense, in the kitchen), a ‘speaking ban’ was imposed on all and the play button was finally pressed.

The album opens with Witch Hunt. Ominous sounds mix with a jumble of voices. Than the full band kicks in with heavy guitar riffs and great bass play. The song has a high tempo and is very powerful. Rob starts singing and you immediately hear that he has grown enormously. His voice is clear and strong. Than John’s first guitar solo follows, which is really amazing. After a break with again those oppressive voices the band continues with the same tight pace. 

Witch Hunt merges seamlessly with An Angel Falls. It starts with piano play and vocals combined with soft keyboard play. After and a-cappella break the rest of the band kicks in with staccato drum and bass. An amazing keyboard solo follows interspersed with mellotron while you hear powerful guitar play in the background. This is really stunning; waves of goose flesh tingle my body. Then a long and dragging guitar solo by John follows and without really noticing it we have arrived at the third song, Painted Man. It has a wonderful theme that returns several times on the album. Great keyboard and guitar solos alternate while Rob again shows his strongest side. The bass play by Ian is absolutely brilliant, proving he is one of the best bass players in the world. Shrieking guitarplay ends this track. The first three songs are like a heavy freight train that has thundered past me.

But don’t expect any time to catch your breath. We’ve arrived at (This Way) Madness Lies, the first of three instrumental songs on the album. The track is nicely up-tempo and has a perfect base with great drum and bass play. That’s the most remarkable thing about Contagion, the drum and especially bass play are phenomenal! You clearly hear that Ian and Mick are well played in on each other; together they provide the enormous powerful foundation the music has. In the meantime the track rushes past you. John plays the absolute lead role in all of this. He fills up the song with his brilliant guitar play and performs one of the longest guitar solos in Arena’s history.

During A Spectre At The Feast we can finally catch our breaths. The song has a ballad-like opening with strumming keyboards and beautiful vocals. After two and a half minutes the song transforms into a driving up-tempo track with a catchy melody. And once again - I continue saying it - great bass play. The vocals are strong and in bursts also emotional. Sometimes Rob lets his voice rise flawlessly, something he does easily.

Never-Ending Night is the next one up. It opens quietly with keys and vocals. Then a crossing follows in which some lovely drum and bass play can be heard and John kicks off a beautiful dragging guitar solo after which the song continues the way it started. At the end you hear menacing sounds and again those oppressing vocals, speaking in strange (mostly Asian) languages. It isn’t the first time these voices can be heard. Clive probably stuck in some sort of message here …

Skin Game is a song with quite a few tempo changes and a great guitar solo. In the beginning the song is quite heavy and dark, but at the end it gets lighter and feels friendlier. The many-voiced vocals at the end seem to radiate a sort of hope and give the listener a good feeling.

Salamander is another highlight. Especially the amazing keyboard play by Clive is to thank for this. The keyboard theme in the guitar solo of Never-Ending Night forms the base for this track. The vocals by Rob are beautifully emotional. How this man has grown!

On The Box is another instrumental, and this is something remarkable about Contagion. Until now Arena rarely did instrumental tracks. Only Serenity and Elea occur to me (not counting the Crying For Help tracks). On Contagion no less than three instrumentals are featured and they are all highlights for me. On The Box is a nice high tempo song and has staccato guitar play as a base on which the Hammond-like play by Clive and later the up-tempo guitar by John can fully accelerate. The sound of Morse code ends this song. Afterwards Clive mentioned that this is real Morse code, so there is something hidden in there…

Tsunami is the track that appeals to me the least. I think the song is rather inaccessible, something which can of course change after repeated listens. At the time however I have to base my opinion on hearing the album just once. This song does however have yet another brilliant bass part.

A song that really grabs you by the throat with its beautiful melody and guitar play is Fallow Ground [later renamed Bitter Harvest – eds.]. After a ballad-like intro with just piano and vocals the band suddenly kicks in full blown and the theme that could be heard in Painted Man returns in a sublime way. Hardly any song on Contagion can be considered a ballad (like e.g. Friday’s Dream on Immortal?). The song merges into The City Of Lanterns, a track that has a prominent role in the (phenomenal) artwork. It’s one of the shortest tracks and consists of just two short verses. The vocals have been placed right on top of the mix making it very oppressive and claustrophobic.

Riding The Tide is another instrumental and already one of my favourites. It starts in a high pace with delicious floating keys. You immediately can’t sit still anymore and the infectious play instantly draws you into the track. The amazing keyboard play dominates the full song and carries it from one peak to another. This is Clive at his best! This is going to be a killer live!

Mea Culpa opens with the sound of a crackling gramophone record. You hear a scary keyboard play by Clive and the vocals in mono, as if it was recorded in the thirties. Very slowly the vocals change to ‘normal’, something they’ve done amazingly well! Thanks to Rob the song feels nice and warm. His voice once again sounds amazing in this one, a little raw now and then but really stunning. You could consider this song the ballad of the album, but that wouldn’t give the song the credit due.

Cutting The Cards is the biggest surprise of the album. The intro consists of quiet acoustic, rather Spanish sounding, guitar play. Then suddenly the acoustic play shifts to sixth gear and Rob sings his vocals incredibly fast. During this his voice sounds nice and aggressive, something he pulls off remarkably well. Suddenly the acoustic guitar is exchanged for heavy guitar riffs. This must be one of the heaviest riffs Arena has ever put to CD. The bass and drums easily keep up and add to the burst of adrenaline this song causes.

Ascension is the finale of the album, and a great one! This is one of those ‘larger than life’ tracks, a song that lifts you up and keeps you afloat until the last note. ‘Rising up’, sings Rob and I get goose flesh all over my body. The music wells up further and continuously repeats itself an octave higher. At the peak the music slowly decreases in volume and an hour-long adventure ends.

It is clear to me that each band member has given his utter best on Contagion. As far as I’m concerned everybody has excelled himself. I can however easily claim that Ian is the biggest hero of this album. His bass plays a crucial role in the music on Contagion. He used a Rickenbacker for this album; a bass guitar with a unique sound, but also one which is quite hard to play. He hadn’t played one before but that certainly doesn’t show on this album. Hopefully he’ll take it along on the tour.

With Immortal? they claimed it would be a dark and heavy album. Musically I didn’t really agree with that. It does apply to this album though. All of the songs are relatively short (never more than 6 minutes) and are quite heavy and dark as far as music and mood are concerned. The pace of the music is also relatively high, making listening to the album a real roller coaster ride. This album is a real musical (and of course lyrical) adventure, a real burst of adrenaline.

Like The Visitor, Contagion is a concept album, but the two albums can hardly be compared. The Visitor is more a collection of songs, collaboratively telling a story. Theme’s rarely reoccur. This is different on Contagion; theme’s cross and return in various forms. It’s a real growing album, you will continue to discover new things with every time you play it, bringing the album more and more to life. 

After listening to the CD it was fearfully quiet in the room. Initially Clive thought we didn’t like the album, but you could clearly see that everybody was perplexed and was still trying to digest what they had just heard. Everybody was enormously impressed. Is Contagion the best Arena album? I think everybody will have to judge for himself, but there can be no to ways about it: Arena has delivered another masterpiece!

By: Maarten Goossensen