FOOLED EYES

This debut album from young brazilians Thessera is quite interesting.

The guitar is the main instrument here, but with a sound not too often heard in prog metal. Polished, slick and somewhat subdued, the guitar sound has similiarities to Dream Theaters debut "When Dream And Day Unite". And the guitar solos offered deals just as much with drawn out notes and melodies as with scale masturbation - wish more guitarists would do that...

The piano is used on quite a few tracks to carry the melody as well, and it fits perfectly. Synth is mainly used to enhance moods.

There are touches of jazz and fusion here and there in the songs; unusual for a prog metal band - but it works quite well here.

Main weakness on this album is the vocalist; doesn't quite cope with the task at hand in my opinion.

But a good debut nontheless, and should be checked out if you're into this genre.

There is something bigger, an important thing which this band offers pleasant surprise, in dimly lit metal waters. Yeah, these waters are quite polluted by unoriginality, which, as a myth, Fooled Eyes broke.

Probably the guitar solos and ""Dream Theater in our way of doing thing"" music. OK, it's easy (oh, they just sung line of lyrics "it's not esy" but believe me, it is), I quite like Dream Theater, I rate them very high, but at times, I wish they would do the music little bit different, but as I said, from time to time. And this is it. I don't say that they're clone of each other with few things made other way, but the rest same. No. They're exploring possibilities of prog metal in places where I haven't heard many bands before. Because of this, it sounds fresh and new. But same in matter of melody. Sadly, when somebody is compared to DT, he fails at ""who's better musician, who can play his instrument better." test. But it's unfair to think like that, because they play quite good.

4(+) unless you hate prog metal, it's excellent choice

3.5 for sure

Thessera from Brazil is a progressive metal band with moderate succes so far in prog metal zone, maybe because they release so far a single album in 2006 named Fooled eyes issued by Prog rock records. The band is clearly influenced by bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, the instrumental passages are quite great in places, the voice aswell remind me of Fates Warning sometimes, all in all more then ok album. The intro is a great instrumental piece that show the potential of the band followed by the best track of the album, The Gallery, lenghy piece, where specially the keyboards are top notch, nice great voice for sure. Broken Psyches is another highlight with excellent guitar parts, piano is used in couple of piece and is very well melted witht he rest of the instruments. Quite complex prog metal, with some great moments, melodic and in same time very skillful album. So, one of the good prog metal releases coming from Brazil, it's a shame that they release only this album, I don't know if they are still active in this bussines, I would like to see a second album soon if there will be a second output in the future, because they had potential but some how they remain due to this release and some of the musical passages followers not leaders in this zone. Still an album that can be descovered by prog metal listners. Great cover art and great booklet.

This is the debut album from this Brazilian band that were formed in 2003, when they decided that they wanted to produce progressive metal that was influenced by styles as diverse as Fusion, blues, Brazilian rhythms and classical music. The line-up is The band is comprised of Marcelo Quina (vocals), Nando Costa (guitar), Raphael Lamim (guitar), Marcelo Mattos (bass), Rodolfo Amaro (keyboards) and Fernando Cerutti (drums) and it is of very little surprise to me to see that they have already performed with Angra ? a band which they definitely have some similarities. Of course, if you are a prog band you may as well go the whole hog and the debut album is a concept telling the story of young artist Andrew Hesser and what happens to him before and after his engagement party.

It certainly doesn't sound like a debut, and comes across with the power and passion of Fates Warning with the keyboards cutting across the guitars and the dramatic drums always driving the band on to greater heights. It isn't the sort of music that I would have imagined coming out of South America as they keep their Brazilian roots in check a lot of the time and produce music that is very hard hitting and very North American/German in flavour. This is going to take a lot of the prog metal community by storm ? debuts aren't supposed to sound as strong and polished as this. It isn't perfect, there is still room for improvement, but for a starting place it is a damn good place to be. If you enjoy prog metal then you need to go to the site and listen to some of this, at least. www.thessera.com or www.progrockrecords.com