MORE THAN JUST A WORD

12 words, but clearly more than just that contains the second album from Greek progressive metal outfit Soundgeist. As confirmed by the band, this is a concept album and the themes seem to deal quite a lot with nostalgia, personal choices, life and death, and lyrically it is indeed very strong.

The sound is not exactly the typical progressive metal that you would expect, although there are patterns that resemble the 90's scene. Their "spirit of sound" is (deliberately or not) a wide spectrum of musical influences, ranging from Pink Floyd (listen to the opening delay on the guitar on 'Time'), to Ayreon ('Innocence'), mixing styles that reminded me of Led Zeppelin and Fusion Orchestra ('Religion') and go even as far as combining alternative metal in the vein of Alice in Chains and heavy rock/prog - call me Sabbath and Atomic Rooster - in the same song ('Shelter').

''More Than Just a Word'' is generally 'rough around the edges', with a production that is not finely polished (especially on the distortion) and vocals that display pure passion but show some room for improvement both in tonality and accent (not so evident a problem here when compared to a lot of Greek bands in the scene). Pivotal in the style of the band is the diversity on the guitars by Zografakis, keeping the album flowing from mellow to heavy and from a classic rock riffology to modern prog metal tendencies, also blinking an eye to the likes of Rush and Porcupine Tree, with psychedelia making selective appearances here and there.

The tendency to experiment pays out as the band includes three instrumental tracks ('Death', standing out, only contains some spoken lyrics) and the weaker moments ('Mother', 'Soundgeist') do not spoil the listening experience as a whole. 'Serenity' nicely sums up the album with references to the opening track and 'Innocence' and leaves a sweet taste.

3+ stars for this very promising album; with little more attention and work, I am expecting Soundgeist to produce something even better. An album that will spin a few times on my decks.

Best moments: Time, Innocence, Religion

www.soundgeist.gr