TWILIGHT IN OLYMPUS

Twilight In Olympus is the fourth album by US prog metal band Symphony X and follows on from their "brake through" album, The Divine Wings Of Tragedy. This album features a change in the line up from the previous album, with Jason Rullo leaving and being replaced by Tom Walling.

What I notice with this album is that it feels very similar to its predecessor, in that there are many short, none prog, songs on the album that, though not bad, aren't as good as the full prog songs on here. The pick of these short songs is Orion The Hunter, which is actually pretty long but follows a similar formula to the rest of the short songs. This one stands out as it seems to work better on all fronts than the others.

Of the longer songs, you find that they are better spaced on this album than the previous, with one at the start, the middle and another to close out the album, which is an improvement on having one close to the start and the rest at the end. The first of these is the second track, Church Of The Machine, which starts with a strange, airy sound effect that gives it the impression that it is being wound up, before the band jumps in all at once into the chorus with a bang. It's the least impressive of the three songs and follows very predictable changes in the music. The chorus is also quite cheesy, but annoyingly catchy and will stay with you after you hear it.

Through The Looking Glass is a big surprise for me as it is a really involving song that makes a lot of use of uplifting passages as well as some very diverse sections. All the band members proved on here that they are very good musicians by each having small sections were they can show off there skills without the song sounding like an exercise in technique rather than a proper song, and as a result this has become my favourite composition of there's. The lyrics on this also hold up as being none cheesy, a rarity from Symphony X.

Lady Of The Snow is a vary unique song for the band as its very slow and melancholic, building up that feeling for much of the song before fading out. It really stands out as slow Symphony X songs are few and far between and this shows that the band can make music like this when the mood takes them. Lyrically its quite a strong song as well but this one is based around a Japanese tale, rather than made up by Michael Romeo and Russell Allen, giving it a more credible baseline to start with.

The change in drummer on this album hasn't really made a change to the sound or style of the band, or effected the way the other musicians play. I still find the drumming the weakest part of the line up and rhythm section really is held together by Thomas Miller, once again affirming that he is one excellent bass player.

I'll give this 3 stars as its got some good songs but there's nothing new on here, and Divine Wings is a stronger album overall, even if Twilight In Olympus is slightly stronger lyrically.