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The
European market seems to be flooded with good quality progressive metal
bands at
the moment, who have stood
the test of time over the past five or six years,
and never succumb to the
more radio friendly music that the UK seems to bandy about.
The quality progressive metal album has been in abundance of late,
and this latest release from Hungarian band Age Of Nemesis,
formerly known simply as
'Nemesis', is
another one of those quality albums I have had the privilege to listen
too.
The album opens up with a six-part concept work 'The Psychogeist Story'
which tells of a tale of a doctor who splits up from his wife and moves
away with their son where he experiments on his son. Then the
mother gets a phone call to identify her ex-husband, but the
circumstances of his death and his experiments with his son are lost.
Only the boy can say what really happened!
There have been some great concept albums over the years, and although
this is not a concept album from start to finish, it still ranks highly
among the likes of Queensryche's 'Operation Mindcrime' and 'Empire' and
WASP's 'Crimson Idol' as a great concept piece.
The rest of the album starts off with the impressive instrumental
'Goddess Nemesis'.
'Eye of the Snake' has a very Eastern feel to it and the intensity of
the vocals of Zoltan Kiss are some of the best on the entire album.
Things are slowed down a little with 'Karma', which lets the keyboards
of Gyorgy Nagy run riot on the track, and this mixed with the heavy bass
line of Gabor Krecsmarik make for a very dark and moving piece.
The final two tracks on the album are some of the finest example of
progressive power metal you will ever hear. The first 'Abraxas'
mixes haunting vocals with powerful guitar riffs to great effect. The
final track 'Awaking Minds' is another instrumental and the rich
keyboards and semi acoustic guitars round off a truly excellent album.
The artwork on the insert contains some truly wonderful, and somewhat
disturbing pictures, check it out and you'll see what I mean. The album
also contains the bonus video for 'Fates Door', which in my mind
finishes this package off very well indeed. Well worth checking out both
musically and otherwise!
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