UNIVERSE

well theres no doubt this is an awesome peice of prog metal.. i fail to see how some people can associate this with jazz, i cant hear anything hear that resembles jazz whatsoever! The thing lacking with this album is the songwriting quality. These songs just seem like noisy, confusing jams where everybody shows off their best chops.. extremely hard to listen to..the way i like it. I suppose the songwriting is not all that important in this sort of band anyway. By far the best moment in this whole album is about 3 minutes into the first song where Virgil Donati goes for about an 8 second drum break, which is just mind bogglingly awesome!!! and then changes the complete time of the song. Of course Donati is the highlight in this album, the guitar and keys do notning that youve never heard before, which i think is a bit of a shame. Watch out for the last track 2116, the timesignature is just insane. Virgil does this thing where he drags the beat by slowing and speeding up within the bar. its awesome like all of the drumming on this album.