CALMA

And here they gave us another glimpse of their sober and good produced progressive metal, maybe a bit more hard rock oriented this time, making this album more accessible and radio friendly than their debut Saltos en el Tiempo. So among the typical metal songs like Atrapada and Tras de ti, we can hear a pair of mid-tempo songs like Solo un Sol o Sin Motivos, always with a very good taste and competent musicianship.

Sadly, the vocals are still weaker than the rest of the band, singing Marcial out of tune sometimes and with a very limited vocal range. Nevertheless, he makes a decent job in the best song of the album, Sarajevo, a Savatage- influenced song with a great chorus and fantastic instrumental passages.

Sarajevo also contains the best lyrics of the album, which are rather absurd and weak in general terms.

Best Tracks: Solo un Sol, Sarajevo.

Conclusion: Calma an album that still shows the influences of Metropolis VI (mainly Dream Theater and Savatage) and brought nothing new to the prog-metal scene. Nevertheless, in a country with so a limited production in this genre, Metropolis VI shined brightly in the few years that they were active.

Calma has bad lyrics, is not original and contains weak vocals. Nevertheless, it also contains glimpses of real talent inside, so if you are a prog-metal addict, maybe you should give this record and the band's debut Saltos en el Tiempo a try.

My rating: ***