BLACK UTOPIA

I have to say that the sound of DEREK SHERINIAN is not a copy of the sound of DREAM THEATER! First of all, there is no annoying "average guy" vocal (as one of the reviewers of DREAM THEATER called it :-)) in DEREK SHERINIAN - the music is solely instrumental. For this reason "Black Utopia" is easier to review as I do not need to complain about possibly silly lyrics :-) The album features a lot of complex guitar work, which sometimes sounds as that of Ozzy Osbourne (sorry, capitals are reserved for prog artists only), for example, shortly after 2:40 of "Nightmare Cinema". Keyboards are rather numerous and mostly create atmosphere, except in "Gypsy Moth", where piano is a principal instrument. As to its heaviness, I would rate this album as light-metallic: while there are typical metallic elements on it, such as a characteristic guitar sound (as in "Nightmare Cinema", "Axis of Evil", "Black Utopia") or slow "ballads" ("The Fury", "Starcycle", "Sweet Lament" (it would be really great to dance with a well-dressed beautiful woman to "Sweet Lament"! (I am sure Derek can afford that, or rather her :-)) :-)), the bass guitars do not dominate the background all the time ("Gypsy Moth" lacks bass guitars almost entirely), and the music is much more imaginative and artistic than on a typical (non-prog) metallic album (and maybe that is why we call it progressive metal, not simply metal?!). Overall, "Black Utopia" leaves a really favourable impression. I've been listening to this album a couple of times a day for the whole last week! Not an immortal masterpiece, but certainly an indispensable album for prog lovers, especially for fans of DREAM THEATER and LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT.