THE NEVER ENDING ILLUSION

Pretty decent effort by this Italian band on their sophomore effort, and one that should please many prog metal fans.

Many will probably reject them offhand if listening to this album superficially though; as the attention catchers are grim, slightly gritty guitar riffs pretty similar to Dream Theater as they sounded on the Awake album. Having a vocalist with a powerful voice in the James LaBrie mould strengthens the first impression of this act being a carbon copy.

However, when paying closer attention to this album the similarities are mostly on the surface. The songs are generally more riff and guitar dominated affairs; with less quirky compositional structures but at times slightly more quirky riff patterns. The synths take more of a back seat in this band; used more as effect and generally less dominant than in Dream Theater's productions, and Davide Merletto has a more refined (or perhaps less bombastic) vocal delivery than James LaBrie.

The guitar sound do result in a general sound pretty close to the aforementioned band though; and should have a strong appeal to those into that act - and might also appeal to those that find LaBrie's vocals to be too bombastic but otherwise enjoys the music of Dream Theater.