OKYR

It's not a surprise that a Dream Theater cover band shows their influence on their first album with that awkward title ''Premorbid Intelligence''. I was septical for the vocals work in the first song but impress by the musicianship and the multiple twists and turns. The vocals improve with ''Janus-Faced''. The pace change from the calm passage with piano to faster heavy passages. The band uses death vocals with clean vocals in their complex prog metal showing their craft by long instrumental sections. They can also bring short jazz or exotic passage between two classical prog metal sections. The first half of the song ''Man in White'' goes nowhere before a break where the music gets back on track with some guitar heroic and some multi-part vocals taken from the book of Gentle Giant at the end. ''Calm Down'' is the first misstep sounding like a bad Rush's song. ''Satyriasis''' is not getting better but after that, the band gets back to their classical Dream Theater kind of Prog-Metal. The last song ''Neurosis'' shows a clear influence of the band Threshold. For a first album, this not bad at all.