SHADOW GALLERY

First release selftitled from 1992 of already legendary prog metal band Shadow Gallery is a very promising debut in prog metal realm. I really like a lot this one, being very close in consistency of what they will offer later on. Even the sound is not exactly a very solid one, the compositions really smoke from start to finish. Pieces like The dance of fools, Darktown and the lenghty The queen of the city of ice are strong prog metal pieces with nice changes in tempo and some killer keyboards. The keyboards arrangements here are really great, and the vocal parts and guitar aswell. Bombastic symphonic passages are very well melted with prog metal elements all in good measure and with fine musicinship. This is more then ok material, oftently unnoticed in prog metal circles, all the eyes were on Dream Theater second album Images and words back then who re invent the prog metal scene with that album and Shadow Gallery debut released same year were kinda left in the shadow. Definetly one of the best debut albums in prog metal scene for sure. From me easy 4 stars, in same league with their later releases. Carved in stone btw remaining to me at least, their most acomplished work and one of top 5 prog metal albums ever .