THE DETACHED

Anubis Gate are without a doubt one of the most interesting contemporary progressive power metal bands in the world and as far as I am concerned the best metal export from Denmark. It's a shame that those guys haven't made their breakthrough yet especially as they are able to not only maintain their high level but to improve it in regular time lapses. At least, they got a lot of favourable ratings from genre experts and their growing fan base.

This album is a really inspiring and diversified progressive metal album. It's filled with atmospheric parts, technically addicting progressive passages and a good amount of catchy melodies. It's easy to listen to this record if you listen to it as background music at one side but also easy to listen to if you concentrate and focus on the songs. This is a quality which many progressive bands don't have as they sound too complicated, ambitious and diversified for their own good. With an average length somewhere between six and seven minute sper song, Anubis Gate just found the right mixture in my ears. They sound fresh and addicting but still complex and creative. There are really many interesting changes in style to observe but the band doesn't lose itself in musical masturbations with endless guitar solos or keyboard intros like many other bands of the genre. Anubis Gate are creative and surprising like in the epic hymn "Yiri" or the amazing and exotic "Pyramids" but also easy and coherent to approach, catchy and straight like in the more commercial and addicting "Lost in myself" or the darker and hypnotizing "Out Of Time" that sounds like a Dream Theater classic and I mean this in a entirely positive way.

This would be a perfect album for someone who would like to discover the progressive metal genre and who wants to start with something original of a high quality but nothing to complicated. Anubis Gate delivers the best deal here. It is a very good progressive metal record that fits to any occasion and the best thing is that this record grows more and more with the time. The only small negative element that keeps this record away from being perfect and not just very good is the fact that there is maybe neither a good single choice nor a truly outstanding epic masterpiece on this album that could gather further attention as most of the tracks really are all equally great.

Originally published on www.metal-archives.com on October 5th of the year 2011.