10/10

Another incredible band from Germany, they have a marked influence from Dream Theater, five members, Roland Stoll, vocals; Wolfgang Kerinnis, guitars; Jan Vacik, keyboards; Benno Schmidtler, bass and Michael Schwager, Drums; but at this time only Wolfgang remains in the band, the rest leave it; Wolfgang is the brain from Dreamscape, he will join a new band, like Marcel from Suncaged, but changes in line up is nothing new for Wolfgang, there are a lot of Dreamscape’s past members.

5^th Season, their best album, nine songs, more than 63 minutes of magnificent Teutonic progressive metal; the album begins with Fed Up With, good song, I like the drums and the vocals, also guitars are great, the rhythms are very progressive; Borderline, the keyboards and the drums are the most notorious instruments on this song, the guitar solo is fine, but the first two songs from the long play are not the best; 5^th Season; lasts almost 15 minutes, starts with guitar harmonies that reminds me Voices from DT, the vocals are fantastic, drums are very technical, bass that follows the drums, guitar and keys grand solos, heavy and progressive parts, reflexive lyrics, this song gets everything; Déjà vu, top song, starts incredibly, perfect prog, heavy guitar chords and arrhythmic drums, strong bass, then keys orchestration and vocals, I run races from 10 to 21 km and this song is powerful when I am training or competing, pure musical fuel; magnificent guitar solo followed by perfect prog again, fucking awesome!; Somebody, a self esteem theme with prog metal music; Phenomenon, another top song, begins with keys, heavy guitar distortion and drums, followed by bass, then, orchestration and prog guitar harmonies, and then vocals appears, but the part that sounds amazingly is the chorus “now it feels, what in means…” is pure fucking prog metal with an enchanting voice, (at the same that Déjà vu, in the run training or competing is truly powerful, recommended!); guitar solo with feeling followed by musical part alike DT and followed by keys solo, the way that they played this song is simply impressive; Different, guitar heaviness with extraordinary double bass followed by piano; sounds like an End of Silence’s track; Point Zero, fine music, starts with piano, keys orchestration, cymbals and  bass, followed by acoustic guitar, then electric guitar and drums; one guitar solo, after a minutes another guitar solo followed by one keys solo and followed by another guitar solo, simply brilliant!; Farewell, a good bye ballad, it make us see that say farewell to the loved one is not so hard, the piano is wonderful, there are woman vocals that improves the song; excellent finale for the album; now they are working in new material.

This album really starts off with a bang, an amazing instrumental aptly called (The Monster), so i'm thinking ok, this is going to be awesome, well it's not the case, I find the album deteriorates from there. I was a huge fan of Charlies vox on When Dream And Day Unite, but not so much on this album, I find his voice sounding like a cross between La Brie and Halford.

The songs didnt hold my interest either, I found them rather monotonous, don't get me wrong, these guys are very talented musically, I just found the songwriting was lacking somewhat. I found myself too often saying I've heard all this before!! For sure there will be fans who will love this, and by all means add it to the collection. I just personally wouldn't play it enough to warrant me buying the cd. For fans who want to hear Charlie 1 more time.

                                                    MARK BASTON

10/10

Third release from this supreme French formation, the debut from their new drummer, Chris Briand, very technical, he makes an extraordinary work, Fred, Vince and John improve as musicians, they sounds better, Frank keeps his brilliant voice,,these guys work so hard in every album, we keep a close communication with them, and all the time they are creating something impressive, outstanding music in the metal scene.

Unreal, nine tracks, almost 50 minutes of metal, a fantastic experience from White Willow to Tomorrow, they created a paranormal atmosphere with their lyrics and these was mixed with the heavy music, powerful and crushing riffs, phantasmagorical piano, keys and orchestrations, strong vocals, they have fascination to create progressive metal, magnificent rhythms, musical parts and solos at the level of the best bands, I can not imagine what they will do in their next albums, there is a lot of talent an creativity from the band members, so we will wait for the live gigs, without a doubt buy it, totally recommended.

Ivory Tower – Subjective Enemy (2008) – Review by Logan Lee

This piece of work (I swear I have tried for almost two weeks) is not really among my favourites, but technically some factors deserved a special attention.

First of all, the lyrics are profound and deep. Emotionally speaking this CD left me with some (good) scars on my mind. It’s kind of a theme album, that put into light the life of a man divided inside himself after a youth of suffering and lack of affect. To protect himself he develops hate and arrogance without being aware of it; as a consequence, all people once near him started to avoid him. Finally, the main character realizes that his dark side is transforming him into some sort of monster and start trying to defeat it. The entire album talks about his struggle and the effects of all the hate that grow inside him..

Besides the lyrics the album did not impressed me. The vocalist presents some clear limitations and the rest of the band is above standard for sure, but they are not presenting a slice of something new.

I might end this review by saying that I saw some wonderful ideas by listening to their songs, but they have to improve their ability to insert it in a less prolix way and maybe consider a change of vocal style.