ROOM V

While 2001's Legacy album continued on where 1995's brilliant Carved In Stone took off, the present album from 2005 continues on where 1999's Tyranny took off. Indeed, Room V constitutes part 2 of Tyranny and contains acts III and IV of the story that started on that earlier album. Tyranny was a great album and in my opinion, this sequel is less impressive. Room V is a decent album for sure with some good moments but it emphasizes the weaker aspects of Tyranny rather than building on its strengths. Whatever is good on this album was already done at least as good on Tyranny and what is less good is... well, less good.

It starts off well enough with Manhunt, a short fast paced instrumental introduction in the same style as that which opened Tyranny. The second track is already a letdown, though. The male-female duet Comfort Me is cheesy and immediately gives the listener the impression that he is hearing a Rock Opera or Musical. Some people like this, I suppose, but for me it becomes somewhat bombastic in the negative sense. This song sounds very much like something you would hear on the radio or TV. Not my cup of tea and disappointing coming from such a great band as Shadow Gallery.

The rest of the album is better but it never really reaches the high level of previous albums. One of the many things that I liked so much about Carved In Stone, for example, was the strong variation. There is a lot less of that here. Still, there are several good moments. One further problem is that the album is very long with a running time of 75 minutes. Towards the end the ears get somewhat tired of listening to more of the same.

Overall Room V is a bit of a disappointment for me after such a strong series of albums as Carved In Stone, Tyranny and Legacy. I therefore recommend this album only after you've heard those others. I'm sorry to give such a low final rating as this is after all a decent album, but it just fails to impress me the way the band's other albums do.

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