THE DIVINE WINGS OF TRAGEDY

Divine Wings Of Tragedy and I go way back. I bought this album in in my early teens so it goes without saying that everything I'm planning to write here is going to be biased by the nostalgia I have for this particular release.

I might as well admit that as a teenager I had a brief fling with power metal and '90s were the peak years for the genre and its development. Gamma Ray dropped the bomb with Land Of The Free and material from bands like Hammerfall, Stratovarius and Helloween was better than ever. In comes the relatively unknown U.S. band called Symphony X and shakes things up even more with an entirely different take on the genre with their third album The Divine Wings Of Tragedy!

The album starts-off in a straight forward power metal fashion with Of Sins And Shadows. But wait! Did I just hear a chorus? Come to think of it the guitar riffs are much more creative than any of the power metal bands could deliver at the time and what a solo! The material leading up to the title track brings something new and interesting to the overall sound, unfortunately they are all overshadowed by the monster of a composition up ahead!

The 20 minute The Divine Wings Of Tragedy made me realize pretty early on that this was no ordinary power metal album I was listening to. The composition takes its time and builds the music one riff at the time until culminating into the wonderful outro. This is epic progressive metal song writing at its finest. In fact I owe it to this album for getting me into progressive metal! After such a powerful statement I shouldn't even hesitate giving this album the highest possible rating but I shall restrain myself. The reason being that I just can't recommend this album to everyone because of this albums heavy reliance on the power metal scene of its time.

***** star songs: Of Sins And Shadows (4:58) The Divine Wings Of Tragedy (20:41)

**** star songs: Sea Of Lies (4:18) Out Of The Ashes (3:39) The Accolade (9:51) Pharaoh (5:28) The Eyes Of Medusa (5:26) The Witching Hour (4:15) Candlelight Fantasia (6:45)