CYBION

A good friend of mine, Bill, showed two other friends and I one of the songs on this album. He told us we should buy it in lieu of it's $35 price. They're indie, proggy, talented, and I needed to start listening to metal. Where else to start but these guys?

Bill has apologized to us four times since.

Instrumentally, the band is flawless, I hold no grudge against it. They're almost good enough to disregard all else with the album; but not so.

The vocals are where most problems come in. There are perhaps four singers and all of them sing for each character. Keiji is sung by three different singers and the same goes for most other characters. The growls are simply sung to be sung and not making an emotional point as they should. YOU DO NOT SING "MY HEART IS SMILING, I'M IN LOVE" IN A DEATH GROWL!

The lyrics are also a problem. They tell of an discussion between man and Alien intelligently and then use the words "but then". Their new language is interesting at times but rather pointless and many times you won't realize the lyrics have been sung until halfway through an entire stanza.

As for progressive: all different time signatures are in the introduction sound like the CD started skipping and you couldn't get a full measure. "11/16? It's an unfinished 4/4 time signature." The rest of the album is basic 4/4 with occasional orchestration or a saxophone solo. However, that's when the album's music is good and after Part One, the music is always good.

The second album, I heard not much of but my friends were obsessed with it. That makes it worth it enough in my book.

Breakdown: Amazing Instrumentation; Mediocre Lyrics; Okay singing; Ten Years of work was wasted. Tommy was made in ten months, The Wall in eleven. Both albums are dozen times better than this prog opera. We overpaid by about $20 (subject to change).