IVORY TOWER

2.5 stars...

My rating is just fake...This is not a bad album at all...Actually it has some really good moments...some nice keyboard solos and acrobatics,some nice guitar riffs and melodies (are DREAM THEATER come to your mind?) ,do not imagine something amazing but this album really stands good...and the vocalist stands good as well with his metal voice,imagine a slightly german accented version of Ray Alder of FATES WARNING...The problem is that everything you hear in this disc is previously about 1000 times played by other bands and listening to this album again and again goes rather boring...at a point that I just avoid listening to that kind of bands...Not my cup of tea anymore,but DREAM THEATER freaks who just can't get enough might enjoy this one a lot...

Ivory Tower debut from 1998 self titled is a good prog metal release that probably will pleases every DT fan. Never going much further from DT clones on this album, Ivory Tower still managing to have some good towards great pieces here like One Life In Asia with some great guitar parts, A distant light or the ending tune Blinded. Nice arrangements, keyboards, guitars all is here. If their next album, for me at least, Beyond the stars is a real gem in prog metal field, this self titled debut is more then decent with good pieces still far from excellent. I like the art work here as on their next album, goes hand in hand with the music offered. 3 solid stars for me maybe 3.5 in places.

Here is a band who has a ton of potential but somehow just can't quite manage to channel it properly to create anything truly memorable. Whilst there are some good tunes coming from the German group Ivory Tower, most of the time this, their self-titled debut album, seems to just fall flat on it's face.

I'm trying not to be too critical as there are some good tracks here, but sadly most of the time you just feel that you've already heard the same songs played a thousand times better by another band. On a positive note though, 'Alive' is a pretty awesome, upbeat song, and 'She' has a nice steady beat to inspire some serious headbanging, and to compliment the heavier tracks we have the beautiful piano ballad 'Spring'.

But apart from these three songs, the others all have hit-or-miss moments, and instead of finding something new with each listen, you just feel more frustration at having to listen through a whole heap of uninspired boredom to get to the good stuff.

Overall this isn't a terrible album, but it's not something I can see myself coming back to very often. The musicianship is fine and the vocals aren't bad, although sometimes the lyrics can be pretty lame, but ultimately the problem with this album is that it just tends to be boring most of the time. I feel bad giving it two stars, but three would seem a bit too generous to be honest.