PARADISE LOST

Suddenly, everyone was talking about Symphony X... so one friend of mine gave me this album and said "You'll like this... is better than Dream Theater..." I didn't believe it, as DT is my favorite band and seeing the subject I really had my doubts about it... One thing is to make an epic masterpiece and something way different to take on one of the best poems of the literature history and try to make justice to a masterpiece of poetry... seems too pretentious to me... so I prepared myself to check it out...

Well, I stopped it at the 2nd track... as I thought, it was just an excuse to the singer to take the roll of the devil and get screaming about how much the devil hates the mankind between some though power symphonic metal... and forget about the album.. months later, I discover and fell in love with the "New Mithology" album and really didn't believe how they where so good and creative and sound so great... so I give it a second chance to the famous Paradise Lost... God... how wrong was I... it sounds like an almost perfect album... but first, I point at the highlights... that are too many....!!!

First, the theme was something so ambicious, I doubt another band could make the honor to this greatest poem -One of my favorites books also...- the musical thematics while some could say are already use in other albums and by other bands, I really feel the emotion through the whole piece and been coherent with it's own goal... you know... you kinda feel the hate through the devils speach, and then I almost cry in the "Paradise Lost" song with that beautiful piano and the suffer of Adam when he discover the sin of Eve... you know... "Love is a tragedy..." and all of it... just great... the heaviness maybe is too much for the soft prog fans... but I really love the power of this album... I mean... this is how heavy an album can be without been annoying... at list, for me... and then, the quality of the players is just tip-top... they truly are on the level of the DT guys... and the vocals seems to fit well in this more heavy music... Allen become one of my favorite singers with a lot of range and texture, but this album is not his best... while the music is really demanding and heavy...

Then, why is an "almost" perfect album... well, I know many do not care about the lyrics, is fair to say that if you are talking about the origin of the world and the suffering of the mankind and you only takes the roles of the demons and the men, don't you think there's something a little miss there...??? like GOD... I mean... I don't say they have to take a religious way... but who send the devil to hell...??? and, who said to Adam to avoid eating the forbiden fruit...??? It's silly that the band avoid to put the role of God somewhere... Not even in an instrumental song or something... so I really feel that it could be more respectable for a rock band to take the risk and break another "cliché" of avoiding talk about God... I mean, they alone pick up the subject... so why don't to take the whole risk...??? but well... now that you're aware... really, dont' aloud yourself to loose this oportunity to really enjoy a real masterpiece of symphonic rock... one of my favorites albums in the last years... Symphony X is on the level of the greatest... sure is for the delight of my generation...!!! cheers...