ARTEMISIA

Sun Caged is a Dutch representative of the heavily populated European terrain of "Dreamtheater-lite" bands (Vanden Plas, Dreamscape, Darkwater etc) - heavy yet melodic metal with keyboards and clean vocals, 7-minute average songs with a few melodic transitions and instrumental twists along the way.

In my view, Sun Caged is not the first tier. They are certainly competent, but the best description I can come up with is, well, OK. Lyre's harmony has an OK intro, making me think, well, I will listen to this. A Fair Trade is an OK melodic song, they are some good choruses and bass lines here and there (instrumental credits list a fretlss bass). The sound is thinner and solos are fewer than average for prog metal, keys are more of an atmospheric backdrop. Singer has a melodic voice, well suited for pop-rock, but not powerful enough for metal. Perhaps accordingly, the tempo is mostly slow-to-mid. In short, nothing here stands out. There are no moments here that make me think, what a groovy riff, or, what an unexpected twist. Departing Words does have a ragtime-space guitar-Indian music-xylophone instrumental sequence, which is unfortunately book-ended by a bizarre "robotic woman" vocal sample and all too obviously inspired by Dreamtheater sound experiments. OK, but not essential.