BURN THE SUN

For me, this album suffered from the "I love it right out of the box" syndrome. As prog goes, usually it is better to have to grow into an album than to like it straight away. (I'll never forget after listensing to Rage Against the Machine for the first time that they would be my favorite band forever. After about the third listen, I was ambivelent about them. That CD is pretty dusty by now.) The first 3 or 4 songs blew me away on first listen and after the first couple of spins, I was ready to hail this one as a classic. But after repeated listenings, the songwriting and hooks just doesn't grasp me enough to give high marks. The musicianship is top rate, the production is great and Jorn Lande's voice is very strong. The album has some very good moments but isn't consistent enough to get up to four stars. Good prog-metal but not great. 3 stars.