PARALLEL MINDS

Despite my built-in scepticism towards things neo-power-prog-metal, I found Conception's debut a great listen. Unfortunately, on the sophomore effort they gave up some of the elements that made them special.

The band follows the same pattern too much, all but one song are short verse - chorus rock songs with the mandatory guitar solo. It becomes too much of a formula and as it goes with formulaic albums, it only works for as long as the material is consistently good. But that is not the case here.

I first heard Conception on my weekly metal radio program back in 1993. Roll The Fire was the track the radio station choose to play and it's not a bad choice. It's very effective and gives a good impression of what this album is about. Alas, that more or less sums it up. Some songs are a bit slower, others are faster; there are a number of power ballads and one weak 9-minute epic. The best sits at the start. The opening Water Confines is a fast and powerful slab of metal similar to Dio's solo material: fast, rocking and catchy with poignant melodic vocals. In good Rainbow fashion the music has a distinct middle-eastern flavour, both in its rhythm and in the lyrical vocals and guitar solos. And I Close My Eyes and Roll The Fire are also good examples.

This album has not one surprise in store. After a debut album that did some side steps into other areas such as doom metal and even Latin music, the band decided to stick to their guns and comply with genre-expectations. While the result is competent, it's too much easy-listening really.