THE BEACONS OF SOMEWHERE SOMETIME

Subsignal, which arose from the ashes of a seminal German prog band Sieges Even, continue with their brand of melancholic adult-oriented power pop, but still showing its metal roots. This is their lengthiest album with more complex songs, as these average 6 minutes, and also with a 20-minute loosely tied quasi epic. So I guess you can call it boredom squared, ha-ha, since there are few things more boring than AOR and prog metal. But seriously, you'll find all the Marcus Steffen and Arno Menses trademarks you love here: hard riffs followed by soft ones, soaring vocals, classical guitar runs and pretentious lyrics. On the flip side, production is more muffled than on their earlier releases, and several instances where they use double kicks as a contrast to nice melodies are annoying, less effective device than the contrast between harder and softer guitar.