Progarchives, the progressive rock ultimate discography
Edge Of Sanity - Crimson II CD (album) cover

CRIMSON II

Edge Of Sanity

 

Tech/Extreme Prog Metal

3.69 | 123 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

AtLossForWords
Prog Reviewer
4 stars The latest review of Edge of Sanity is a winner. Crimson II is more of a 44 minute Progressive Death Metal epic than it is a collection of songs. The album is broken into 44 tracks about one minute long. This makes navigation extremely hard for the listener, but as a whole single listen, there's nothing to complain about.

The keyboards are probably the strong point of the album. Swano does any excellent job doing all of the instruments, but particularly excels with keyboards. His synths are dark fitting the tonality of the album. The tones though dark still feature a variety of sounds that keep the listener interested.

The guitars are buttery thick, and exactly what you would respect from an Extreme Metal album. The melodies are extremely clear. More solos would fit nicely. The melodies are there, but there is a lack of virtuosity.

The drums are powerful and somewhat variant. The album does not contain the greatest drumming I have ever heard, but it fits the genre and does not bore the listener. The fills are there, the beats are pretty cool, but there is a lack of variation. Many of the beats that Swano does get somewhat repeatative.

The vocals are a mix of growls and clean singing. Dan Swano does both exceptionally well. the growls are not too deep, they are in a comfortable listening range that will not alienate users that are not prejudiced against growling no matter how unecessary they believe it is. The clean vocals definately shine when they get there chance. I would have liked more clean singing from Swano on the album, but this doesn't diminish the album's quality.

The bass is almost non-existant. Not many fans of this genre listen to it for the bass playing. A little bit more diversity in bass parts is definately something Swano should take into future consideration.

The production is really good. The guitar is crisp and clear with equal volume between heavy riffs and delicate melodies. The keyboards have imaginative dark sounds that fit the album perfectly. The drums are powerful, but somewhat typical for metal. The bass is almost non-existant but non-essential considering the genre.

The albums is definately five stars for a metal band, but this is a Progressive review for a Progressive community. A four seems like a just rating to me because of the albums good sense of musicality.

AtLossForWords | 4/5 |

MEMBERS LOGIN ZONE

As a registered member (register here if not), you can post rating/reviews (& edit later), comments reviews and submit new albums.

You are not logged, please complete authentication before continuing (use forum credentials).

Forum user
Forum password

Share this EDGE OF SANITY review

Social review comments () BETA







Review related links

Copyright Prog Archives, All rights reserved. | Legal Notice | Privacy Policy | Advertise | RSS + syndications

Other sites in the MAC network: JazzMusicArchives.com — jazz music reviews and archives | MetalMusicArchives.com — metal music reviews and archives

Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.