FINISTERRA

Well for my first experience with MDO, I don't think I fell upon the best album to find out what this group, is about, but it was the only one my library has. So I had a week to judge out this double album, but I must say that some 10 mins of listening to the first few tracks, then zapping from one track to the next, FFWding through every succeeding ones, my mind quickly grasped what "the deal was" and started thinking about getting the fondue set from the cupboard, for the cheesy storm under-whelming me. Stuck between an unimaginative folk, a pale copy of symphonic prog and a generally progmetal (or at least hard prog) overall attitude, with a done-1000000000-times-before concept and an artwork to shame it, this is the kind of album that HURTS the name of prog, because it represents all of the clichés of today's prog groups and steals plenty from their ancestors (the flute passages sounding like sub-par Tull amongst others), not escaping ridicule along the way.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't heard (or more likely very partially skipped through) an awful album, far from it. I mean, these guys obviously put a lot of work behind such a "project", but really before making such an investment, they should consider the need to actually invest time and money into such a needless and ill-advised concept album. One might think that they most likely did it for themselves, which is fair enough, but does the average proghead really need the lost of time in such inessential products as this one (let alone time, but cash as well). The "folk" is very cliché and reductive, always around the jig- type, their metal a bad mix of Hair Metal and Europe (the group) -AOR and is a bit laughable, while the symphonic parts are nearly as cliché as their folk;

I have no idea if their other records are any cheesier than this one, but I can say that this double-fondue dose gave me no envy to check out their other albums. Best avoided, 'less you like heavy stomachs, gummy teeth, reeking breath and difficult digestion.