Release

Style

On 'Czar of steel' former Dream Theater buddy John Petrucci plays stars from heaven in a magnificent fusion track, where guitar and keyboards are playing tight together, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes soloing one after each other, very often you can’t even hear the difference between both instruments. Add a technical refined drum solo and impressive funky bass lines and the tone has been set properly. ‘Man with no Name’ contains heavy hard rock à la Black Sabbath with Zak Wylde as Ozzie stand in, the keyboards giving it a Dream Theater touch, varied with a quiet symphonic interplay. This  is an unbelievable dynamic song with crazy solos, one of the highlights on this album.

This may be a solo album of a keyboard player, but as said the drummers are playing an important role in the general sound, as well for the songwriting as for their technique. Listen to track like Phantom Shuffle, pure jazz fusion with a lot of brass, apparently Sherinian goes a lor more solo than on previous albums. What a contrast with Been her before, a quite instrumental 'ambient' track, comparisons can be made with Jan Akkerman. The title track of the album delivers threatening progressive metal with two guitar virtuoses (Wylde & Malmsteen), in the vein of Symphony X but yet again with some quiet fragments, something between Kayak and Karmakanic.

On the moon is gain an ambient, even easy listening track, the beginning sounds like a relaxation cd, but the beautifully played saxophone (Candy Dulfer like) makes this very intense and even romantic, unbelievable to find this on a 'progmetal-cd', this illustrates the diversity of Sherinian, showcasing a very nice jazzy piano solo.  The Monsoon is pure  progmetal, Dream Theater meets Satriani.

The short 'Prelude to Battle' contains a lot of Eastern sounds, proving the Armenian roots of this artist. Viking Massacre is absolutely made for Yngwie Malmsteen, symphonic progmetal à la Rhapsody but with a strange retro Hammond-solo.

The album ends with a cover of the mega hit of the seventies 70 ‘In the summertime’ of Mungo Jerry, sung by Billy Idol and supported by Slash. Although this track will also be released, it contains not enough new or refreshing elements, apart from the nice little guitar solo by Slash. Luckily this album provides so much musical pleasure, I will easily forget it.

Derek Sherinian seems to be better on each solo album, I don’t know where this going to end…this is top !

Musicians

Special Guests:
Billy Idol (Vocals)
Slash (Guitar)

Planet X (1999)

Inertia (2001)

Black Utopia (2003)

Mythology (2004)

Blood of the snake (2006)

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Last updated: 05 augustus 2006 .
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