DIGITAL GHOSTS

After the previous Room V album, Mike Baker sadly passed away and left Shadow Gallery without a lead vocalist. They bravely soldiered on however and recorded this album, their last to date. The album opens with the superb, 10 minute With Honor featuring delightful Yes-like harmony vocals and Steve Howe-like guitar. Venom is a more straightforward Metal tune and not particularly interesting. Pain shifts back and forth between piano-based balladry and a simple heavy riff. The vocal performance on this song is sublime (reminding of Mike Baker's best moments), but the simplicity of the main riff subtracts from the song's overall value. It comes across as something like an average latter-day Deep Purple track! Gold Dust has some very nice keyboard parts but again the song as a whole is merely good and not too special. Strong continues in a similar fashion with a rather conventional riff. Don't get me wrong, all of these songs are indeed enjoyable - but it almost constantly feels as if you've heard it all before.

Not until the title track are we again approaching the quality of the very good opening track. These tracks are longer and more progressive than the tracks in the middle. There is in these longer tracks a Symphonic Prog influence as well as a certain jazziness. Haunted is a nice piano based semi-ballad with strong vocals, but again not too special or original.

This album is as good as Room V, but far behind earlier greats like Carved In Stone, Tyranny and Legacy.

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