INFINITY

Nice Prog-Metal with unusually agressive drums (2 bass-drums from hell!) and average vocalist. Very much collector's item, musically close to DREAM THEATER's "WDADU" , FATES WARNING and sometimes Power Metal.All songs (except for the last one - bonus from 1998) are complex and vary in moods and themes changes ("Crystal Palace" opens with pretty catchy riff, btw). Not a Must-Have for sure even for a Prog-Metal devotee, but it has some enjoyable bits

Infinity is a demo album from 1991 released by the German progressive metal act Payne´s Gray. I know Payne´s Gray from their debut album Kadath Decoded (1995) and because I caught them live opening for Psychotic Waltz in 1995. The debut album is a very original progressive metal album with lots of classical and jazzy influences and two male lead singers which is rather unusual in a progressive metal band ( I can´t recall hearing about this before or since).

The music on Infinity is not as original as on the debut and even though this is a high quality demo. The music is rather generic progressive metal. Very melodic and with lots of keyboard from Tomek Turek. His keyboard work is really brilliant on Kadath Decoded and it´s pretty good here too. The vocals from Hagen Schmidt ( Lead singer number two Haluk Balikci had not yet been included in the lineup) are typical high pitched vocals and I have the same problems with the vocals on Infinity as I have on Kadath Decoded. As such Hagen Schmidt is a good vocalist but the vocal melodies are not very strong and he often comes out sounding rather weak. A bit of a shame really.

The musicianship is excellent and as mentioned it´s especially keyboardist Tomek Turek who shines.

The production is good for a demo recording. Clean.

Payne´s Gray isn´t my favorite progressive metal band, but they definitely had that special thing that could have brought them far if they had continued making music. They folded after the tour with Psychotic Waltz as far as I´m told. Infinity is for the fans of the band and deserves a 2 star rating. Not bad but very mediocre. I would most definitely start with the very original and interesting Kadath Decoded instead.