BEYOND DAYLIGHT

But with a heavy Dream Theater influence... Specially the way the Günter Werno's keyboards are similar to the Kevin Moore's ones. And Andy Kuntz tries to make some James LaBrie typical tricks too, specially in the deep tones... The riffs of the songs are also very Petrucci. The general style of the music is maybe a bit more classical, and it's a bit under the 80's influence, but the overall sensation is that this album is way too similar to Dream Theater.

Nevertheless, like I said before, the music inlcuded here has prime quality... The production is just perfect, outstanding. Everything sounds great here! I specially like the interludes of the songs, the instrumental sections. For example, in End of All Days, we have the typical prog metal song, with a good chorus. But suddenly, after the second chorus, an acoustic guitar appears, accompanied by a great keyboard melody... Then some good vocal melodies guide the song to a hard, intrincated and brilliant section. And this kind of breakings (with different schemes...) happens in almost every song! The piano part in the middle of Beyond Daylight, the very Dream Theater but excellent solo in Scarlet Flower Fields... I really love the instrumental sections of this album!

Another important fact is the good mixture this album has between hard and mellow tracks, the slow and speed ones... The dominat key are the middle speed ones, but we have also some metal bullets like the classical Free the Fire, and the Symphony X influenced Phoenix... So this good choice of the tracks mood, together with the homogene quality of almost all of them, makes this album really enjoyable to listen to.

Best Tracks: a really difficult choice... My favourites are maybe Nightwalker, Scarlet Flower Fields (great chorus, and brilliant middle section...), End of All Days (I also love the instrumental interlude...), Can You Hear me (a really catchy ballad...) and Beyond Daylight (maybe the best track of the album...)

Conclusion: if you are a prog metal fan, you'll surely enjoy this album, like I do... But if you're are searching something really new or exciting, you're looking in the wrong direction, because this album lacks some originality. There are no big surprises in the style of this germans... They make great music, but they take no risks. This is the reason I can't say this album should be in every prog music collection.

My rating: ***1/2

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