DIMENSION

Ego consists of 9 songs ranging from the slow melodic metal of Dreams to the heavy power metal/thrash of The Next In Line. The must hear highlight song for progressive rock fans is the 3-part 20 minute long epic title track, which has that special something that should place it in the ranks of the classic progressive rock epics of times of yore.

This album is the type that us progressive rock fans love so much, where you will hear something new every time that you listen to it. It is what we like to refer to as a "grower". Admittedly, the first couple of times that I listened to it, I felt that it was an OK prog metal album but the voice was kind of strange and made it hard to listen to. However, after repeated listens I came to enjoy the uniqueness of his voice. Also, the use of the string quartet really started to reveal itself to me with each repeat listen and contributes to having this album stand out more in comparison to other recent albums in the traditional prog metal vein.

In my opinion this album rates 4 stars in the Prog Archives ratings system. I believe that this album is an excellent addition to any prog rock music collection; especially if that collection has a space reserved for bands like Dream Theater and Symphony X.

As good as this album is I did find the lyrics to be somewhat cryptic. Reading along with the printed lyrics in the booklet did not really help me to understand what some of the songs were supposed to be about. In addition, there are a couple of parts where either words were either mispronounced or the vocalist took poetic license with the pronunciation that made it sound a bit awkward to me. Overall though, these parts were very few. Fortunately, many prog rock fans aren't concerned about the lyrics so this shouldn't be a detraction from purchasing this excellent album.