UTOPIA

Listening to this album has been a mixed bag: I enjoy the symphonic and jazz elements of this tremendously but am not an avid fan of heavy prog. Still, this is, to my ears, very good progresssive rock--the vocals being the weakest element of the music, the keyboards being the strongest. While not quite up there with Tool's Lateralus, Karnivool's Sound Awake, Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet, and Riverside's Second Life Syndrome; it is on a par with Sylvan's Posthumous Silence, Gösta Berlings Saga's Detta Har Hänt , Rishloo's Feathergun, and Von Hertzen Brothers' Love Remains the Same.

Favorite songs: "Kono Yume" (8:41) (9/10); "Obsession" (9:12) (8/10), and; "Utopia" (12:31) (8/10).