HACKBERRY

Sometimes you can be blown away by an instrumental prog rock album from a band that you don't hear a lot. This one has only four songs with 2 big epics. It starts with a song that has a solid melody in the vein of the more progressive side of Dream Theater. The song is played at just the right tempo to enjoy the melody. It's mostly drum/guitar and bass oriented but the keyboards have their space later on. There is some cool bass break in the middle of the first song with some spacey passage that brings things down. "Miraggio" brings another atmosphere with a short piano intro before the heaviness comes back in a pure Opeth style and some powerful guitar riffs. The band enjoys to stretch out their song in a kind of control jamming style keeping at times a frenetic pace with some smooth break and a quieter guitar to gives us a breather after some intense passages. I can't say anything wrong with this album that has solid melodies that keep you engaged throughout the 45 minutes. There's not a minute wasted for fans of Heavy Prog, Prog Metal and beyond...