II = I

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This is the second album of Sweden band formed in 1999. They released their debut "Extension of The Wish" in 2001. There is a change in line-up since the debut album with new lead singer David Fremberg and the exit of previous bass player Gert Daun. The bass line is now taken care by the guitar player Johan Reinholdz. Basically it has transformed from five-piece to four-piece band. The rest of the band members are intact: Thomas Lejon looks after drum stools and Martin Herdin (keyboards).

The band has a potential future as great band in progressive metal arena. This album represents their existence in this arena demonstrating their ability to compose and deliver their music with power and energy. Using Mike Portnoy's view of sort of progressive metal elements (*), this album is heavy (70%), progressive (10%) and melodic (20%). Despite its power and energy, the album is (sometimes) lacking in structure and harmony, I would say. It's probably a mixing / production issue.

Having been opened with soft keyboard and guitar, "Encyclopedia" blasts off with heavy riffs and speed bass line followed by vocal. The music flows in full energy with soft guitar riffs at background. At tempo change, during transition, guitar takes its solo part augmented with symphonic keyboard at background. To my personal taste, the harmony between guitar riffs and drum is a bit lacking. It sounds rough to my ears. At approx min 4:50 - the part where the voice is backed with solo drum and keyboard punch - it does not sound natural to me. This track has a very good guitar solo (in the vein of classic rock music) at the ending part. Unfortunately . this guitar solo has to end not in natural way - it fades out and replaced by tape loop of percussion sound. Uughh . what a regret!

"Mirages" starts off with heavy guitar riffs / solo followed by drumming. The voice line enters the scene with the riffs at the back. There is nice keyboard work combined with guitar solo accompanying the vocal. The guitar solo during interlude is stunning.

"Reaching Deep Within" kicks off with a guitar and keyboard works followed by drum and bass. Again, it sounds to me that this part is lacking harmony and melody. It sounds rough. The riffs produced during the voice line are simple but a bit boring to me. To me, this is a straight forward metal tune. "Two Is One" is the longest track (10:09) . It starts with a nice guitar fills followed by slow tempo music to feature voice line. No guitar riffs at this part. The tempo moves faster at approx min 4:00 with higher tone voice line. The guitar riffs start to roll in the middle of the track augmented with good keyboard sound. The combination of guitar and keyboard solo during interlude / transitions is really good.

"Morphing Into Nothing" is an upbeat instrumental piece demonstrating keyboard and guitar sounds. It's a very good composition. I like the harmony of two sounds (keyboard and guitar) in the middle of the track (approx min 4:00) onward. It actually can be better if the mixing is improved as it sounds bit rough to me.

"Castaway" is a mellow track performed in ballad style. The vocal harmony is excellent, the piano fills are stunning. No riffs; guitar is played with fills. No drumming. Solo piano is wonderful. I can hear that the lead singer voice in low register is very good. It's a melodic and relaxing track.

"Parasite" blows off with heavy music and it flows in typical prog met music. The music turns quieter in the middle of the track with great keyboard and voice line. This part is really nice. I can hear sort of jazz/fusion influence in this track.

"One In My Head" starts off with a melodic piano / keyboard touch followed by upbeat music with excellent guitar and keyboard. This track has relatively long instrumental as the vocal takes off around the middle of the track. Despite good performance, this track is lacking in structure (music wise) and mixing (production wise).

"This Fragile Surface" is probably the most symphonic one compared to the other tracks. Yes, there are guitar riffs still but it only accentuates the bars during the voice line. The guitar solo and keyboard work are really wonderful and melodic. This is an excellent track well positioned to conclude the album.

Overall this album is good but not essential. However, I would still recommend this album for those of you who like progressive metal music like Dream Theater, Symphony X, Ice Age, Pain of Salvation, Evergrey, etc. Rating: 3.25/5. GW, Indonesia.

Reference: (*) Interview with Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater as it can be seen from DREAM THEATER "Live at Budokan" DVD - disc 2. It's a simple and practical definition of progressive metal genre, I think.

Relatively new Prog Metal band from Sweden brings nostalgia of Dream Theater.

Andromeda is a Progressive Metal band from Sweden. I have almost nothing but comments from this great and relatively new band. II=I is there second studio release. When one listens to it, the elements of a dark emotional sound with an excellent mix hard and soft matierial will become apparent.

The album is written similar to Dream Theater. Throughout all of the album there are jazzy overtones complimenting the funk-styled rythym playing. Thomas LeJon is a Progressive Metal drummer with talents that can compare even to Mike Portnoy and Virgil Donati. Johan Reinholdz is one of the very best young progressive metal guitarists. On certain occaisions his playing can excel ahead of players like John Petrucci. The future is very bright for this young guitarist (who doubles on bass). His styled is extremely smooth and jazzy, truly a pleasure to listen to. Martin Hedin is also an apt keyboardist. Hedin has excellent skill, but lacks synth sound creativity. The only complaint I really have are the vocals from David Fremberg. He fits the band somewhat nicely, but he has trouble in some of the more delicate tracks. If his voice matures enough to sing smoother in softer parts, he also has a bright future.

The album is quite a piece of work. The opening track Encyclopedia imeadiately gets the listener thinking about the lyrics. The title track Two Is One is a Progressive art. The song has a special touch to it to keep building with emotion while staying calm musically. The track finally starts to climax at the end which was a perfect lead to the next track, the insturmental Morphing Into Nothing. The insturmental shows off the amazing insturmental talents this band has. It's even comparable to Dance of Eternity by Dream Theater, but it's longer and showcases more guitars than keyboards.

The production isn't lively, but it really fits the album. The tones are dark and subtle. Even the drums have a certain bleakness to their tone. The bass isn't noticeable, but Johan Reinholdz makes his living in this band as a guitarist, not a bassist. The keyboards are my only complaint as they are somewhat uncreative with the tone selection.

The music is definately five star quality, but the band is young and I'm sure to see better work from them in the future. A 4 star rating is adequate.

After the success of their debut "Extension Of The Wish" they follow it up with an allbum that seems to be more focused on the vocallist (and songs) and less on the instrumental work (that is their strength). Well, for whatever reason this one does not hold up well to their first one.

"Encyclopedia" features lots of tempo shifts good guitar and heavy drums. I enjoy the lighter passages a lot, especially the guitar melodies.There seems to be a dark undercurrent throughout this song. "Mirages" opens with slow, heavy riffs with some good guitar solos and keyboard flurries. "Reaching Deep Within" is a song that employs the background synths I like so much. Lots of riffs too. "Two Is One" is the longest song here and the first half is mellow with piano and soft vocals while the second half is more uptempo and heavy.

"Morphing Into Nothing" is a full speed ahead instrumental. These guys can play ! "Castaway" has some reserved vocals and beautiful piano melodies. "Parasite" is all over the place with lots of mood and tempo shifts. The aggressive vocals that come and go don't do much for me at all. "One In My Head" opens with piano and has some complex arrangments. This is an interesting,well done song. We don't get vocals until almost 4 minutes in. "This Fragile Surface" has keyboard melodies all through it and lots of tempo changes as well.

Good album but I don't think i'd recommend it when there is so much good Prog-Metal out there that is much better than this one.

Thank God the title of the album is a lie!

After a relatively successful debut, Andromeda 2 years later release a brand new studio album entitled II=I. However, they changed their vocalist and that is a major change for the better, since David Fremberg vocals are better than Lawrence Mackrory to Andromeda's music. I mean, David Fremberg's vocals fit much better in Andromeda's music than Lawrence Mackrory's vocals, what is ultimately proven when they re-release their debut with Fremberg singing. Another interesting change is that their original bass players is also gone and, because of that, their guitarist Johan Reinholdz played the bass at the recording sessions. The result was very good, but Johan Reinholdz would still be the band's guitarist, after they found the new bass player, which is Fabian Gustavsson now.

Anyway, in Two is One Andromeda present themselves in a much darker mood than the one seen in Extension of the Wish. The songs are still played on the frantic speed they were on the debut, but now they (at least most of them) sound heavier and are in minor scales, what is responsible for the darker or sadder mood here. However, they still have some nice soft songs here, like Two is One and Castaway.

About the songs, musicianship and other features, there are some things i would like to state:

Andromeda's main characteristic is most certainly their incredible instrumental work, specially the guitars and the keyboards / pianos, and this albums shows it perfectly. From the incredible opening of Encyclopedia till This Fragile Surface both the guitars and the keyboards are blasting and the drums make it very round, smooth and complete. However, the musicianship of all players is incredible, in a positive way.

The highlights are: Encyclopedia (one of their best songs ever), Mirages, Two Is One, Morphing Into Nothing, One in my Head and This Fragile Surface.

Grade and Final Thoughts

With a new vocalist, Andromeda definitely reached the next level here, making music that is worthy to be considered and respected in the progressive metal scene. This album is all good, having no bad songs in my opinion, with some considerable highlights. Because of that this album deserves 4 stars.

Andromeda second release from 2003 was a pleasent surprise for me from the biggining 3 years ago. This swedish prog metal band did a great job here mixing Dream Theater elements with groovy and intrsting arrangemets. I like this kind of prog metal up tempo, fast , slow depends how the mood changes, everything on this second release named II=I is a winner to my ears. Ok the influences are obvious taken from DT but they have also some personality in their work here aswell. LIke very much what the keyboard player Marin Hedin done here, really, something great in full of excellent chops, not to mention the drumer who is very sure of his instrument and created a real solit shythm section with the bass player, great. The voice is a new one on this album face the previous one the debute. I don't know the first album, but the voice of David Fremberg is good and fits very well here. This album has everything to become a great release in the future, complexity, progressive metal that pleases every fan, me included. Every single piece is great, showing that Andromeda is a force in this subgenre, not only followers , but real progressive metal band with talented musicians. 3.5 rounded to 4 .Still the instrumental one Morphing Into Nothing and Encyclopedia are real killers.Looking forward for another album to listen .