SHALLOW PARADISE

The sophomore effort from Argentinean band Acid Rain is a rather dissapointing surprise from if you take into account their promising debut album. Seems the band has abandoned their progressive metal influences and now is focused into a more mainstream metal kind of sound including a shorter format of songs , less change in dynamics and less participation of the keyboards in the overall sound.

And as if it weren't enough , the old problems from their first album are still there: The vocals are really poor and the songs sound more or less the same with the exeption of 2 (forgettable) ballads. There are truly no highlights on this record , it starts to wear off after 2 or 3 listens so I can only recomend "Shallow Paradise" to the fans of the band since, progressive metal you won't find it here.

I had really high expectations after the promising debut but let's hope the band focuses for the next time and delivers a much better album.

Argentinian outfit ACID RAIN has existed since the '90s, with two EPs and two full length productions to their name so far. "Shallow Paradise" is the latest of these, and was released in 2011.

Accessible, melodic progressive metal is the name of the game on "Shallow Paradise", a solid set of compositions I suspect will be found more interesting outside of the progressive rock oriented crowd than within it. The lack of challenging features is an aspect I surmise will be regarded as negative by the latter and positive by the former. All in all a promising disc by a talented band that appears to be developing quite nicely, and time will have to tell in what direction they will continue their musical endeavors.