IMAGINARY FRIENDS

First signs of a growing fame appear for A.C.T shortly after the release of ''Today's report'', as the Swedish hit the road to play alongside Canadian veterans Saga.Two years later the sophomore album of the band was recorded and released on MTM under the title ''Imaginary friends''.

At this point it is pretty secure to say that A.C.T had established their own personal way to express their ideas.Their QUEEN-meet-ABBA-meet-DREAM THEATER style is fairly grounded on extremely dense and technical musicianship, which surprisingly contains numerous incredible, striking melodies.Elements of Classical Music, Heavy Metal, Rock Opera and cheesy Pop are combined with generosity and intelligence with most of the tracks being pretty short, but sometimes they are tightly connected to form longer pieces.The most amazing thing about the band is the fact that the musicians are virtuosos, executing their parts with technique, but this is very far from a complicated album, this is a monster release full of memorable tunes.A great number of breaks and sudden twists leads from punching Prog Metal with symphonic keyboards to Classical interludes with strings (with no less than four guest female musicians on cello, violin and viola) and from laid-back, lyrical pictures to fast-paced cartoon-like music.The bombastic orchestrations and grandiose moments are constantly present with DREAM THEATER being a dominant influence, but they often lead to syrupy, ballad-like atmospheres with sweet vocals.All tracks are filled with rich sounds and colors, featuring pompous keyboards, strings and guitars with a Neo-Classical style in evidence.Beautiful stuff.

Fantastic release.These guys opened a whole new world for Prog music, later to be honoured by bands such as PROFUSION or SEVEN STEPS TO THE GREEN DOOR.I do not even know how to call this.Neo-Classical Pop Metal?Maybe.Great and highly recommended music.