Now here is a band that take the whole conceptual album thing to the max. This album is a companion piece to The Armory Wars, which was transcribed into comic books and even a novel called Year Of The Black Rainbow. As you would expect the music is vast and challenging, as are the books. Prog metal is an amazing genre that encapsulates a wide variety of styles.
No World For Tomorrow is a very heavy riff laden beast, whereas The Hound (Of Blood And Rank) is a very groovy almost power pop slice of awesome, and it’s my favourite track. Feathers starts with a very simple chord riff with the melody and hook being very accessible. The Running Free is up next and the chugga guitar sounds huge, and I’m loving the main vocal melody. I suppose Mother Superior could be pigeon holed as a ballad, great harmonies though. Gravemakers &
Gunslingers has an old school metal groove to the music but the vocals are very modern sounding, especially with the squeezing as many words as possible into a melody line thing. Justice In Murder follows and the main riff is NWOBHM as right out of 1981. The third and final side is given up to the epic The End Complete, which is split into five parts and is the huge centrepiece of the whole album. A fitting end to an amazing album. Only gripe is Side 4 being an etched side.
An amazing band with a huge imagination.
9/10 from The Grooveman.
