SNOOZE

While their first album was a mix between "Marillion" and some metal sounds, this one starts more in the vein of a band like "Arena". Neo, but on the heavy side. It opens with startling shout like Dave Vanian's one in "New Rose". This short and almost instrumental opener is a good introduction to this album and holds lots of elements which are going to be featured in this double CD set.

"Senes" is very a very melodic and dark song. Still inspired by "Arena", the chorus is catchy and melodic while the music is almost doom metal. The sound of the whole of this album is not very much diversified. Compositions are well crafted, there are some excellent and inspired guitar breaks but over eighty minutes of this treat is a bit too much.

Several tracks sound a bit of the same ("Strange Affair With The Night"). The most interesting song is of course "Dream Killer". An imposing epic which lasts for about twenty minutes, featuring plenty and heavy synthesizers. Very much in the "Dream Theater" style.

Killer riffs, powerful beat and more than anything, convincing vocals; but this was a strong point of the band. Linx is the name of the guy. He adds a definite value to the music performed by "Forgotten Suns". This fully DT oriented song indicates how mighty this band can be. "Dream Killer" is a good anthem of this genre (heavy prog) but thanks to the emotional vocals and soft passages, it is a very sophisticated piece of music which flows naturally well from start to finish. The highlight of course. Just lacking a great and bombastic finale maybe (like in "Moviedrome").

"Pay The Price" closes the first CD on a good note. It combines again strong melodic vocal lines with some heavy bass and guitar. It is a typical archetype of good prog (heavy) metal song.

The second CD starts almost like "Bohemian Rhapsody" (!) and also belongs to the best of this album. This song is more on the melodic side and could be related with the "Ayreon" style. It presents some nice interplay between sophisticated guitar breaks, light vocal passages and very subtle keyboards. It is definitely on par with "Dream Killer". It is probably the more symphonic of their songs and therefore one of my fave from their two albums.

The second CD is much more joyful than the first one. Angel's Embrace is a neo-prog ballad which is rather poignant and it conveys a wonderful and optimistic feeling. Again, the superb guitar solo deserves to be investigated.

The band would have been inspired to get rid of the three very short tracks to allow "snooze" to fit on one CD. Neither "Floating Spirit Dimension", "Death" nor "A Truce" bring additional value of the whole of this good work. The closing number also sounds weaker to my ears. The final Sentence is on the mellow side. It takes over five minutes to be interesting.

According to their web site, the band is now finalizing the pre-production of their third album (with a new lead singer) and some touring dates are already planned for 2008. So, this band will go on for some time. One of the few to hold the Portuguese flag.

This is a good album. Two excellent long songs (over thirty-three minutes), and several good ones would deserve seven out of ten. Three stars.

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