UMUR "Acts of God" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US, Indiana based progressive rock/metal act At War With Self. The album was released through Free Electric in April 2007. At War With Self was founded in 2002 by multi-instrumentalist Glenn Snelwar (also known for his work with Gordian Knot) and is essentially a one-man project. Glenn Snelwar handles guitars, mandolin, bass, keyboards, E-Bow, programming and vocals on "Acts of God", but he is helped out by a couple of guest musicians too.

The music on "Acts of God" continues the progressive rock/metal style of "Torn Between Dimensions (2005)", but is ultimately a rather different sounding release. It´s still predominantly instrumental progressive rock/metal with dynamic use of clean/acoustic guitars, keyboards and occasionally heavier guitar parts and solos. The big difference here is in the drum department, where only some tracks feature "real" drums. On most of the tracks the drums are programmed, and as a consequence the music loses some of it´s otherwise organic sound (the sound production is actually more organic than the case was on the debut album). The drums sound like they are programmed (although I´m told that´s actually not the case) which also makes the whole listening experience less band oriented and more one-man project sounding (it was the other way around on the debut album).

The music style is very hard to describe correctly as there are elements from jazz rock/fusion, progressive rock/metal, instrumental guitar music, ambient/atmospheric new age and latin music, featured on the album among other things.

As mentioned above "Acts of God" is predominantly an instrumental release, but there are actually quite a few vocal tracks on the album too, which is good for the variation of the album. It´s obvious that Glenn Snelwar is a skilled musician and everything is delivered with tight precision and with the right amount of adventurous ideas, but the compositions themselves are for the most part slightly unremarkable. "Acts of God" is pleasant and interesting enough while it plays, but the material generally doesn´t stick, and that´s a bit of an issue. Even the vocal tracks just plod along without any recognisable hooks or memorable choruses.

Just like the case was on the debut album, I find myself listening for technical details and other performance related features, instead of just enjoying the music for what it is, and that´s always a sure sign that the actual compositions lack something. It´s not a terrible release by any means, but it´s not really great either, so a 3 star (60%) rating isn´t all wrong.

UMUR "Torn Between Dimensions" is the debut full-length studio album by US, Indianapolis, Indiana based progressive rock/metal act At War With Self. The album was released through the Free Electric Sound label in February 2005. At War With Self was founded in 2002 by multi-instrumentalist Glenn Snelwar (also known for his work with Gordian Knot) and is essentially a one-man project. "Torn Between Dimensions" does however feature session work by drummer Mark Zonder (Fates Warning, Warlord, Slavior) and bassist Michael Manring (Windham Hill, Jeff Loomis, Jim Matheos...among others).

And with a trio like that playing together it´s no wonder the musical performances on the album are of a high quality. Stylistically the music on the album is instrumental progressive rock/metal with strong jazz rock/fusion leanings and more than one nod towards latin music. While At War With Self is widely considered a metal oriented act, the metal elements are limited to some heavy riffing and occasional distorted guitar sections. A couple of darker tinged tracks also contribute to the metal sound, but it´s actually 90s Al Di Meola releases like "Orange And Blue (1994)" and "The Infinite Desire (1998)", that I´m mostly reminded of. So there are as many latin influenced acoustic guitar sections, jazzy guitar solos, fusion influenced drumming, and ambient keyboards featured on "Torn Between Dimensions", as there are heavy distorted riffs.

The balance between the different stylistic elements is an important element in At War With Self´s sound. At times the dynamic music works well and other times the transitions between sections are a bit more awkward sounding. There´s is no doubt that Glenn Snelwar is both a skilled musician and a skilled composer when it comes to the techncial aspect of playing and writing music, but listening to "Torn Between Dimensions" there´s very little on the album that really grabs me and pulls me in. I find myself more interested in the music from a musician´s point of view than from a music listener´s point of view, and although that sort of "musician´s music" is always interesting from a technical perspective, the music generally lacks emotional impact and memorability.

The sound production is also a bit disjointed and although all instruments individually feature a relatively good sound (the distorted guitar tone isn´t that well sounding though), the instruments don´t always work well together in the mix. So "Torn Between Dimensions" is an album with quality assets and some issues and therefore a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.

Sinkadotentree I originally bought this record back in 2006 after hearing that Mark Zonder(FATES WARNING) was involved. Mark of course is one of the best drummers on the planet and FATES WARNING is my favourite Prog-Metal band so it was a no-brainer. This is the project of Glen Snelwar who was on the first GORDIAN KNOT record. Actually that album isn't a bad reference point for what we get here on this all-instrumental concept album. Michael Manring completes the lineup playing bass and e-bow. I can't say enough about the music on this record and the cover art by Travis Smith is incredible. I've been playing this on and off for over a week as i re-acquanted myself with it and to be honest i kept putting off this review so i could keep on returning to it. There's a heaviness to this recording but also a lot of intricate play and atmosphere too as we journey through the 50 minutes of music.In my opinion this is a must-have for fans of instrumental music. M appreciation for this is higher than it ever has been.