UTOPIA

From the very beginning of the first song, Kono Yume, I somehow knew that I was going to love this album... A beautiful intricate piano line opens up the album and then gives way to a very heavy, crushing guitar riff, backed by thundering drums, before a searing guitar lead scorches your face with blazing speed.

And that's just the first two minutes of the song!

I'm always looking for new, exciting prog metal bands, and most of the time when I think I've found something, I either wind up being disappointed or I'll be excited about it for a week or two before putting the album away and not listening to it ever again. I'm not going to lie and say that I've listened to this album every day since it came out, or even every week - not even every month - but I do wind up coming back to it every so often and remembering why I have such a positive connection with it; the album is just good.

Distorted Harmony is an extremely melodic band; the keyboards and guitars tell stories in pretty much every lengthy song. What's impressive to me is that they have combined this fantastic sense of melody with some really heavy, technically impressive moments. Utopia is a very nice blend of harmony, melody, and heaviness, and vocally it's solid all the way through.

To me, the standout tracks of the entire album are Breathe, Obsession, and Utopia. Breathe begins with beautiful acoustic guitars before interchanging between a really dark, heavy riff and some nice, relaxing soft moments. Obsession will remind you of Pain of Salvation back when they were an upper echelon prog metal band. Utopia's instrumental intro is one of the better aggressive heavy metal sections I've heard so far this decade. By the time you get halfway through the song you begin reflecting on the lyrics "No one dares to protest..." and then they give you a quiet interlude to continue reflecting before waking you up with a killer instrumental section again. The song (and album) end on a beautiful, emotional ride lead by a great keyboard melody and excellently-delivered vocals.

I think lyrics are often a forgotten art in progressive metal. Everyone is impressed by great musicianship or vocals, so often lyrics are an afterthought. This album has solid lyrics all the way through, but the title track in particular is powerful, especially when considering the region from which the band hails.

If you, like me, are looking for exciting new prog metal bands, this one is worth checking out.