TRANSCENDENCE

— First review of this album —

Transcendence is a forgotten progressive metal band coming from Dallas, USA releasing only one album at Lion Music in 2001.The music offered by the band is complex with many great moments, great musicianship, good pieces and above all one hell of a singer - Greg Drew, great and powerful voice who fits like a glove in this kind of music. The tunes are from fast to mid tempo and two slower tracks grace tis album named The meridian project. The album sounds melodic filled with powerfull guitar elements and great keybords arrangements who gives the needed atmosphere of a majestic prog metal release, who remind me in places of Symphony X for ex but less neo classical aproach of course. Also the album has a lots of instrumental passages to show that these guys are well intentioned in this field, The fall of meridian and Alpha are entirely instrumental pieces of highest quality.Excellent are the vocal parts, Greg Drew has a voice which seems to be classically trained fortunately he has a varied range and uses his voice well to add some great choruses on every piece his involved. I like that the band focuses more on the songwritting and the result is obvious a very good one , then showing what chops and drops each musician can do with his instrument. So, in the end , a recommended album for prog metal genre, even is unfairly unnoticed by many listners, this was a pleasent surprise for me, and worth every money invested in this album, belive me, great and underrated band. 4 star easy, great and solid.