Lost in Thought – Opus Arise

If you’re a fan of traditional progressive metal, you might want to check out Lost in Thoughts debut album: Opus Arise.

Released April 29th this year, Opus Arise features some very solid songwriting much in the style of Dream Theater and similar bands. The musicianship is generally excellent, and the production is stellar. On the downside, this is not a very original album by any measure, you will not find too many fresh ideas or expressions in this album. So if you’re looking for something that takes progressive metal in a new direction; look elsewhere.

Here is the opening track, Beyond the Flames.

My favorite tracks include the slower Blood Red Diamond and the kicking closing track Assimulate, Destroy. You can find the album on Amazon.

Sadly the band had a car accident on their first European tour in late May, which left the drummer with a broken leg and having to undergo surgery. A news post comment from the drummer, and a recent interview seems to indicate that the recovery so far is going OK. Hopefully he will be fully recovered, back to playing drums, soon.

A friend told me that I should blog about music again. This was a shot at doing just that.

Sons of Seasons – Gods of Vermin

Sons of Seasons was founded by Kamelot keyboardist Oliver Palotai in 2007, and this is their debut album.  I actually did not know that until just now when I looked it up on Wikipedia, so this band was entirely new to me when I first hear this album back in June.

If one is to compare with the recent Kamelot albums this tones the power and symphonic aspects down significantly, instead being more progressive and aggressive. Some might see this as a surprise, but the keyboards actually dominate a lot less! And I think most will see that as a good thing. Maybe its because Oliver is also doing guitars.
My favorite track is definitively the title track (and intro leading up to it), varied and polished like prog metal should be. The vocals are what I find the most refreshing; mostly clean but ranging from snarls to straight out aggressive to tentative and soothing.

Seeing as they signed straight to Napalm Records I guess that there is someone out there that agrees with me in that this is a pretty good album and debut. Looking forward to hear more from them. Recommended for everyone thats into progressive metal and looking for something new!