SECRET SPHERES OF ART

After hearing the 2 tracks hosted on this site I decided to buy the only album that has been released in the states so far Secret Spheres Of Art. I'm not going to analyze each track too much, I'm just going to point out some of the highlights of each song. I'm a big fan of Dream Theater, Fates Warning & Queensryche so this cd leaves a good taste after hearing it and leaves me wanting to hear more from them.

Track 1 - 6:08 - Secret Spheres Great intro (sort of like Dream Theater - Learning To Live) Some good use of backup vocals Guitar Solo From 3:54 - 4:38 Guitar Flutter at 4:19 & 4:20 Rating - 9/10

Track 2 - 1:00 - Journey Into The Dawn Of Life Synths to Military snare with some guitar Relaxing track Rating - 6/10

Track 3 - 4:03 - Politics of War Fast track with decent synths in the middle Guitar Solo From 2:30 - 3:00 Rating - 7/10

Track 4 - 3:28 - Legend of A Stolen Heart Medieval sounding keys in the intro Fast track with decent guitar rifts Rating - 7/10

Track - 5 - 4:45 - Falling Asleep Starts off with slow synths then jams out to being very upbeat Great backup vocals Accoustic Guitar Solo 3:00 - 3:30 (some electric added at the end of it) Very catchy song 9/10

Track - 6 - 2:10 - Kontinuum Outer Space Travel like song of synths some drum beats that progress then fades into the next track 6/10

Track - 7 - 0:57 - Mystica Aegyptiorum Middle Eastern sounding track of hand drums & misc sounds 6/10

Track - 8 - 3:32 - Amon One of the more thrash tracks of the cd Guitar/Drum Solo 2:13 - 2:39 Ends with 15 seconds of accoustic guitar 7/10

Track - 9 - 3:28 - Beyond the Time Upbeat track From 1:45 - 1:58 kick ass 1980s Nintendo NES style midi music Some good guitar work 2/3 through Last 30 seconds goes from dead to the start of the next track 8/10

Track - 10 - 4:28 - Lament Slow and soft song Guitar Solo From 3:11 - 3:40 7/10

Track - 11 - 0:51 - Astral Horizons Military snare, nice keys, guitar & bass drum I would have liked this track to progress into a full song 8/10

Track - 12 - 3:43 - As the Time Passes By Upbeat track with varying tempos Guitar solo 2:35 - 3:15 Nice long guitar flutter at 2:43 9/10

Track - 13 - 1:40 - Overture Solemnis Trash sounding track that sounds scottish somewhat Sort of sounds like Kings Quest (the video game) music at the end 6/10

Track - 14 - 3:34 - Samson Overall a real good song Guitar solo 1:53 - 2:31 Guitar Flutter at 2:13 & 2:14 during solo The song/cd end with some great guitar work 8/10

Overall cd rating 8/10

Secret Spheres of Art is a satisfying album for anyone who enjoys progressive metal, but certainly non-essential.

Secret Spheres introduces the album with a good, solid pace by Damir Adzic on the drums, reminding me of Adagio and some of its creative time signatures. The spacy interlude halfway through the track is followed nicely by some slick solo guitar by Miroslav Brankovic. Finally the song finishes with a driving barrage on the drums. One of the highlights of this album.

Journey Into The Dawn Of Life is a short atmospheric passage with some beautiful keyboards by Branislav Dabic.

Jumping ahead to Legend Of A Stolen Heart, a frantic pace is established with some nice work on drums and guitars. The next track, however, is the highlight of the album for me. I truly warmed up to Falling Asleep with its catchy guitar riff and a beautiful melody that manages to flourish throughout the song, but isn't overworked. Fun and enjoyable to listen to, easy on the ears, and a nice chorus to boot. It was one of the first songs along with Secret Spheres to capture my attention for this album.

Next is Kontinuum. It works effectively with a lonely soundscape and echoing guitars, followed closely by a heavier element of distortion and finally an exciting buildup of drums that had me fooled into anticipating an explosion of sound but instead ending with a radio fade, which was still satisfying.

Mystica Aegyptiorum is a short track that lives up to its name with a middle-eastern flavour, desert winds blowing in the background and some exotic guitar.

I was a little disappointed with the next track . Although it manages to keep the fast pace going by jumping right in with some nice drum and guitar work, and a heavy riff is introduced to add some depth, the overall song and vocals feel standard.

Beyond The Time feels like more of the same, although there was some nice solo work and a classical passage (not sure what composer originally made it, although it is well known) repeats itself first in the second portion of the song with Miroslav's guitars then a background passage in the end of the song with violins.

Lament is a ballad of sorts that slows down the pace of the album a bit, but felt lacking.

The next two tracks I continued to lose interest, as I felt the music was just a rehash of what I had heard earlier, although the last passage of As The Time Passes By redeems the song by with an enjoyable short guitar solo.

My attention was really brought back with Overture Solemnis, however, as I found the melody pleasant and as momentum builds with the guitars, I had a sense of anticipation which is rewarded when the guitars kick in. Miroslav does some more nice solo work here as well.

Finally, the album closer Samson begins with a nice introduction, capturing my attention immediately. Overall an enjoyable track, but nothing spectacular. However, it does justice to the album and leaves me feeling ultimately satisfied.

Although I felt the album begin to lose some momentum in the latter half, it finished off on a high point and I was not left feeling disappoined. I found Secret Spheres Of Art to be a consistent and interesting effort worth having in my collection.

Great music! You never know where you'll find it. Serbia? Being a geography buff, I happen to know where it is. I also know it was a bulwark against Moslem expansionism in centuries past, being located on the crossroad between Europe and Asia Minor. What I didn't know or even suspect was that they had ever heard of, let alone had a band or bands that played western style music.

Alogia is such a band. They play a western style of music generally called epic power metal, the same kind of music that is played by the great American band, Kamelot, French band, Heavenly, Spanish band, Dark Moor, English band Dragonforce and a bevy of bands from Italy, Germany, Sweden and Finland.

Whether Alogia is an anomaly from Serbia or a trend I do not know. I came across them quite by accident, as I have some other bands, on one of my favorite websites: www.progarchives.com. One of the things I like about this site is that they seem to have the most comprehensive listing of the various sub genres of progressive rock around. They also have mp3 downloads available on many of the bands, which is how I got to hear Alogia. It's also how I got to hear Riverside and Archive, whose excellent albums I previously bought and reviewed.

The music of Alogia ranges from hard rocking melodic metal fare like 'Samson' and 'Secret Spheres', to speedy percussion driven Power Metal such as 'Legend of a Stolen Heart', 'As the Time Passes By' and 'Beyond the Time.' Nikola Mijicis provides more than adequate singing with an emotive slightly raspy voice that ranges from pleasant to screaming. As Musicians, the strength of the band seems to be strong guitar and keyboard playing, featuring two guitarists (brothers who were the bands founders) and two keyboardists.

The Secret Spheres of Art contains fourteen tracks but only runs a shade under forty-four minutes. That can be attributed to four instrumental tracks which only run from fifty seconds to a minute forty seconds. Call them suites or introductions to the following songs. Despite their brevity, they are a welcome and integral part of the album. I even consider three of them, Journey into the Dawn of Life, Astral Horizons and Overture Solemnis, highlight songs. Another instrumental song of note is the surreal two minute bombastic "Kontinium" which actually segues into the very short Middle Eastern flavored "Mystica Aegyptiorum," which segues into a chaotic rock song called "Amon."

Other Highlight songs are: . Secret Spheres features driving, somewhat hectic but catchy harmony led by a persistent synthesizer, strong drums and some strong singing. . Falling Asleep is warm feeling, melodious song, slightly slower, with some nice harmonic singing by the band. This particular song reminds me of the style of a band called Wonderland. . Lament is the only ballad on the album. Well, I guess it's really a rock ballad. Very melodious and very catchy. I'm not usually a ballad person but this is an exception. It kind of reminds me of a ballad by Tesla or Def Lepard

Conclusion

I like this band. There isn't anything revolutionary here but they have a nice sound and the work their instruments with precision. There is some orchestral backing on some of the songs as well. Rating 4.25 stars.

I just recently bought this third release by Alogia, presented as a promo. If I understand well it makes no different with the official release, at least not where the line-up of songs is concerned. I don't intend to make this a long review since it immediately becomes obvious that we're hardly dealing with progressive metal here. Just a touch of it I would say but no more. This band plays more a sort of power metal with slight progressive leanings. The execution and production are both ok and there isn't much wrong with the vocals either.

It's also proven by the length of most songs: just one above 5 minutes and the rest is a bunch of uncomplicated metal with an average of about 4 minutes completed with a couple of short interlude-like tracks. So nothing to get really excited about if you are looking for true prog metal. And because of this I will keep my rating limited this time. Not because it's a weak album (on a metal site I would rate this 3,5 or 4 stars probably) but because this is Prog Archives. So just three.