BEYOND THE EXOSPHERE

The adventure of this band started in 2007 by musicians that were big Rush and Dream Theater fans, They must have listened to the latter closely because it sounds a lot like the leader of that genre. The guitar playing is also very much Petrucci influenced, and the drum playing is impressive throughout the whole album. The first 18 minutes epic is a slap in the face with all the trademark of a solid symphonic prog metal song combining technique and melody to make you jump out of your seat. The first part of the song is highlighted by one of the coolest drum solos I have heard followed by an ambient passage where the song picks up his pace slowly with keyboards. It would be a difficult task to surpass the quality of that first song in the next short songs of the album, but the band succeeds to keep the momentum with some solid songwriting letting all musicians take their spot including the keyboards. In the end, you can hear some Symphony-X influence, but despite the fact that the band clearly shows their influences on their sleeves, they still managed to craft their own sound with more dynamics and melody than a lot of Prog Metal bands.