TYRANNY

Okay, 'Tyranny' was my introduction to this band called 'Shadow Gallery'. This album is very versatile, it has lots of elements that keep the listener tuned in and excited. When I first listened this album, I thought it was great, truly a masterpiece, but after listening to it couple of months I noticed bad sides of it easily, and this album really isn't prog.

This album has a concept, it is divided into two acts. The first act starts with 'Stiletto in the Sand', which includes furious drumming and guitarring, nice fills and tense feeling. Then after the intro climax it cools off to a nice keyboard melody and rises to next song named 'War for Sale'. This is very basic rock song. The riff is actually pretty lame, and the singing quite boring. Nothing special about the track. The next song is even more boring. I'm talking about 'Out of Nowhere'. The guitars in the track are heard too many times and the nice little flute melody don't save much. Disappointing first tracks after fine intro. The next song keeps the listener away from anger. 'Mystery' is my favourite track in the album. Very dynamic and decent performance. Great chorus, and good verse. The beginning is good too. 'Hope for Us?' is fine ballad, but full of clichés, I like to listen it as a background music, but when I have to really listen the song, it makes me sick. Not vomiting sick, but like flu or something. The next song is 'Victims'. The track doesn't say anything. It has nothing special, nothing great in it. Every time after listening the album, I cant remember what 'Victims' sounded like. The firsr act ends with a good vocal and piano performance 'Broken'. The end of the first act kind of let the listener hoping for better.

The second act explodes with 'I Believe', which has a guest performance by James LaBrie. I love LaBrie, but I'm not sure can you call so tiny vocal performance a guest appearance. Guess so. This song is pretty good. The song is catchy and melodic at times, while being very hard rock styled. The chorus is very good. The next song keeps up the pace. 'Roads of Thunder' kicks off well and calms down a bit, the middle part is good with basic metal riff. Next is 'Spoke Words', which is a nice ballad with very beautiful female vocals and violin. Very soft and really good track. The next track is 'New World Order', which is very boring track. The beginning is frustrating. The listener has to wait for too long for the real beginning of the song. And the whole song is very dull, lame and boring. The violin and piano solos are great tough, but they don't save this bad track. Chased is my favourite. This song is the only progressive piece of music in the album, good track. The last two ballads are very emotional and cool, but don't give anything special or more to the listener.

Altough I like to listen the album, but I think it is very lame and boring. It structurally is not progressive at all, the only things are some musical time and rhythm changes that remind prog music. All in all, I don't recommend this album to any prog fans. I would give this album three stars somewhere else, but here I can't, it deserves the 'Collectors/fans only'-title. If you like hard rock or soft metal, you propably will enjoy this album.