THE DAMNATION GAME

After the promising but somewhat immature debut, Symphony X found their own musical identity with The Damnation Game. After having been totally impressed with the masterpiece that was The Divine Wings Of Tragedy, it is easy to be somewhat underwhelmed by this earlier album. But judged on its own merits, the present album is something of a forgotten gem of progressive Metal. While the Symphonic Prog tendencies of future tracks like The Accolade are not yet fully developed, The Damnation Game is a legitimate step on the evolution of the band. This is an appealing nice mix of Neo-Classical Metal in the style of the very best of Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force (if you haven't heard their excellent debut from 1984, you really ought to!) and tasteful symphonic Power Metal. The closets we get to symphonic Prog is probably during the excellent nine minute The Edge Of Forever.

The musicianship here is impressive and a clear improvement over the debut in most respects. The material is strong and the songs are all memorable. The vocals of Russell Allen appear here for the first time and most agree that his presence enhanced the sound of the band considerably. While nothing comes close to brilliance of The Divine Wings Of Tragedy, I think that The Damnation Game remains one of the band's best albums ever together with V: The New Mythology Suite.

Highly recommended!

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