THE DARK DISCOVERY

Finding a band that can breathe a breath of fresh air into the lungs of a slowly dying breed of rock is hard to find these days. "Evergrey", however, might just be the answer to the immortal question, "Where did all the good progressive metal acts go?"

It is hard to actually find a good progressive metal act out in the world today. Especially one that can blend such dark and frightening topics such as paranoia and regret with amazing progressive metal, as well as some power metal and gothic metal. Quite a combination going there for them. The album can easily be described as an amazing blend of metal. From start to finish, you are bombarded by various styles. You have your fast, deep, and powerful songs, followed by your really slow, acoustic, break-out-your-lighter-and-sing-in-unison-with-the-vocalist type songs, and then you just have your songs that are in between. There's no constant beat that the band lives up to, bringing a wide array of styles with their presentation.

The lyrics are very deep and meaningful, as well as sometimes spiritual. However, sometimes you cannot hear the vocals. Due to a somewhat low production quality (which is understandable for a band's debut album, especially given the time frame that this CD was actually released overseas in 1998), you can hear the music loudly and amazingly, but the vocals sound faded and off in the distance. And, if you are a real stick-in-the-mud, you can hear some small pops of volume in the song 'Closed Eyes', where the volume level picks up a bit, a cymbol crashes, and the guitars are suddenly real low again, sounding as if the CD skipped slightly, and not as though this sound was done on purpose.

Outside of that, the album is really good. One minute you are given a platter of really fast guitar riffs, the next you are given a slow and meaningful song of passion and fear. It's an odd combination, but it makes for one of the musically better progressive metal releases in a long while. If you haven't already, check this one out for yourself. This was Evergrey's start, and a good one. But in respect of their better produced and more ambitious later stuff, I must take off some points here.

Rating:

6.5/10 points = 64 % on MPV scale = 3 stars

point-system: 0 - 3 points = 1 star / 3.5 - 5.5 points = 2 stars / 6 - 7 points = 3 stars / 7.5 - 8.5 points = 4 stars / 9 - 10 points = 5/5 stars