WINGS OF TIME

Excellent and yet unnoticed release

DGM is one of the prog metal bands that for some reasons never gained much succes over the years like other bands from this genre. While their music is quite good towards great on some albums, DGM is an underrated band in my opinion. This is their second studio release from 1999 named Wings of time. Great, simply excellent album full of catchy arrangements and superb vocal passages sung by their first vocalist Luciano Regoli. I don't realy know why he was replaced after this album with Tita Tani, because here he delivers one of the best vocal lines I ever heared on a prog metal album. He's voice is perfect for this kind of aproach, a perfect balance between prog metal with some power metal arrangements. As I said the music has some superb guitars and keys passages, just listen to Mirrors Of The Night and Guiding Light , the best from here. The rest are also good, some sax interluded with the rest on Deep Inside and Drop of shadow and gives a special atmosphere overall. Also female singer Cristina Cioni helped the bad on Deep inside, her warm voice fits perfect in the tune. The song structures are complex and has an up tempo almost all the time. DGM uses a powerful double bass throughout plus a strong use of keyboards, not to mention the guitar who is quite impressive. In the end a 4 star album. Try this band because they are among the best in prog metal, even if they are in the second league for many listners, and maybe not so well known by metal heads, to me is an excellent album that needs a wider recognition. Similar bands Elegy, Ivory Tower, Eldritch. 4 stars without hesitation. I'm the second reviewer of this release, how strange, is DGM so unknown to wider public???

Progressive/Symphonic Power Metal hailing from Italy, their second release (1999). The first thing I want to note, before getting into my general feelings about this album, is that the musicianship of DGM is certainly great. Now, where I find much of the album wanting is compositionally. Sure, everything is well performed, from guitars to drums to vocals. But quite a few of these tracks were only "good" because of the musicianship, not because the tracks were particularly exciting or interesting (looking at the tracks individually using the PA rating system, nearly half of them wouldn't make it to a 3 in my book, and that certainly sullens my overall rating).

Much of the album frankly isn't overly interesting at all. Soloing, as I'll mention for the standout track, is the clear strongsuit of the band. At this point, providing the listener with something progressive and/or surprising does not seem like a super primary objective. I'm not saying any of the tracks are actually bad, but of course this is Prog Archives and not... uh... "Songs... Archives"? Ha!

Without further ado, we have track 7, "A Drop of Shadow," the certain standout on the album. Finally, some rhythmic complexity, great soloing (including some tasty sax), and a classic sound (with melodies reminiscent of Iron Maiden—hell, even their vocalist has a voice at times reminiscent specifically of Bruce). Mostly a standout because everything else just sort of blends together on this album... and therefore...

True Rate: 2.5/5.0 FFO Dream Theater, Symphony X, Evergrey, Darkwater