EYES OF THE ORACLE

This debut album from POWER OF OMENS has to be one of the most technical albums ever in the Progressive Metal genre. The music is very extremely intricate and complex. They are stretching the boundaries of progressive metal to its outer limits. POWER OF OMENS influences are QUEENSRYCHE, DREAM THEATER, IRON MAIDEN, SHADOW GALLERY, FATES WARNING and RUSH, and you can hear it very clearly in their music. The powerful singer Chris Salinas is almost a copy of QUEENSRYCHE's Geoff Tate. Actually it's hard to tell the difference. The musicians are outstanding (the fact that such brilliant musicians found each other is amazing), and POWER OF OMENS are one of the best new Prog Metal bands from USA.

- Sometimes it's almost too much going on, with thousands of beats at once, and constantly changing time signatures, making the music very inaccessible. The only things that are missing here are some memorable choruses. This is what separates them from, for example DREAM THEATER. DREAM THEATER is among the best Prog Metal musicians today, but they also got the ability to write memorable songs. POWER OF OMENS should have thought more about that instead of just trying to get it as complex as possible. But after all you could say that this is POWER OF OMENS trademark. To make music for those who like technical skills above all. And you can't find a more appropriate band if that's the case, but they sure wont make any big money on their music. But after all, money isn't everything!

- The songs range from 5 to 20 minutes. It isn't easy to pick out any highlights on a record like this, so I wont. But I have to mention "Test of Wills", which is a 19:55 minute masterpiece that have to be one of the best Prog Metal tunes ever written. It's divided into four pieces, and I love the Spanish guitar on part II "A Struggle Within".

- POWER OF OMENS brilliant progressive music will surely find it's way to the heart of every fan of high technical progressive metal. This must be the best debut album in 1998 and one of the best Prog Metal releases ever. What you have here is a masterpiece and a milestone in progressive metal. Highly recommended!

- Rumors are saying that they have another album in the making, and it's gonna be different compared to "Eyes Of The Oracle". I think that if the new album have got some more hooks, that album will be their breakthrough. No doubt about it! A record to look forward to.

The first time I knew about progressive metal was when I heard Dream Theater "Awake" for the first time, especially from the opening track "6:00" which was quite complex for my ears. However, Dream Theater has successfully created a music with great harmony so that makes me impressed with the composition. Through that album Dream Theater presents a complex music with fast speed but in a good melody. Since then my music horizon expanded and I explored other bands like Angra, Kamelot, Symphony X, Fates Warning, Helloween, Rhapsody etc. They have their own unique style and incomparable one to another but all of them share the same energy: metal!

When I got this Power of Omens "Eyes of The Oracle" couple of months ago, I found it very hard to digest the music. First off, the music is quite raw and has its rough-edge compositions that are not quite accessible with most ears. I understand that there are influences of Fates Warning in the music and Queensrych in vocal department. But, the total music delivery is different.

Second, the music harmony is something very difficult to digest because most of their compositions are complex. Each musician seems like playing their instruments in different direction. This might be okay if the tempo is medium. With fast tempo, each musician seems like losing their control with their instrument. If this is something as complex as Gentle Giant, for example, that is okay because Gentle Giant music is quite moderate in tempo. The situation is even worse with this album because the recording quality - in terms of mixing - is quite sharp and rough. It makes a bit unpleasant listening to it.

The opening track "Inner Voices" (1:14) is quite attractive and makes excellent impact as a prog met album But the next track "Alone I stand" (5:27) demonstrates their music complexities as well as how the music harmonies are not well maintained. Each player seems like losing their control over their roles. If you are interested in the virtuosity of each individual player, you might be okay with this album You can then enjoy "The fall" (12:04) which demonstrates the skills of individual player clearly. You can even hear how powerful the lead singer's voce is, especially during high register notes.

The epic "Test of wills" (19:55) is quite interesting to enjoy as it contains wider music horizon with multi styles. The structure is not really straight forward. The vocal section starts with low register notes and he moves brilliantly into higher resister notes, confidently. The existence of keyboard at background provides symphonic nuance. The drum sound is actually quite annoying and I think this is a problem of mixing instead of lack of skills. The acoustic guitar fills in the middle of the track is really brilliant.

Overall, despite the downsides, I think this album still have some strength points like its richness of textures and varied styles in the composition. I only recommend those of you who love progressive metal with some jazzy touch. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW

This is trully a rare,lost and even unknown gem in progressive metal...Do not expevt DREAM THEATER-ish acrobatics from this work...The content of this album is lyrical and dramatic very similar to the early works of QUEENSRYCHE...But this guys go deep enough to categorize them as an original band.Of course the basic influence is QUEENSRYCHE (''Rage for order'' and ''Operation mindcrime''-era) and this sound of the band is supported by the vocals of Chris Salinas who's excellent voice is in the vein of GEOFF TATE...But the whole thing doesn't stop here...Add the right doses of complexity that you will meet in the ''Perfect symmetry'' album of FATES WARNING...The mellow moments are similar to CONCEPTION's works,especially when the spanish guitar is introduced...And the darker passages along with the most theatrical moments of Salinas bring PSYCHOTIC WALTZ to mind...Very interesting ingredients,aren't they?...If you like them,simply try this albu...I'm just impressed...Undoubtfully 4 stars and even better!

3.5 really

One of the unfairly little known progressive metal act from USA is Power of Omens. With two albums under the bels, Power of Omens never gained much attention in prog metal circles despite the absolutely killer musicianship, often to the extreme complexity of their music. Their first album appeared in 1998 named Eyes of the oracle, and is the best from the two. As I said the duels between musicins is awesome, the arrangements are highly complicated but also in parts the melodic lines are well crafted and arranged. This type of prog metal needs more then one spin, very demanding and complex with lots of changes in tempo. The vocal lines are clean and powerful, Chris Salinas is one hell of a great vocalist, he manage to have some jaw dropping moments here. The album is quite lenghty almost 75 min of music, maybe little to long, some listners find it monoton after some repeted listnings. The music is a combination of Fates Warning (Perfect symmetry era), Queensryche in vocal departement + with a doze of jazzy interplays here and there all puted in dark atmosphere. Forte pieces, kinda all, no really weak moments , only that sometimes even I'm a big fan of prog metal the band is taking to far with complexity moves losing in melodic zone a lot. Fans of Spiral Architect and aformentiond bands from above will like this album as I deed, but beware this is not another prog metal out there, is unique and intresting in same time.