RISE

"Rise" is a concept album produced by the Israeli band REIGN OF THE ARCHITECT. The album is a musical extravaganza, and while listening you'll have the feeling that you're actually observing a musical or an opera.

The album is very diverse, from acoustic Folk to growl vocals, it has it all, and everything seems to fit perfectly to the story line. On the other hand, it's not an easy listener but as a Progressive Metal album, it's reasonable. The mix of vocals of Tom Gefen, Davidavi Dolev, Adva Kramer, Yotam Avni and of course Jeff Scot Soto, make the songs feel full and interesting. "We Must Retaliate" is a great example for that.

This is one of those albums that it's not really possible to describe with words. The only thing that was a little hard for me to listen was the fact that this album is so all over the place that sometimes it is hard to catch everything that's coming out of the speakers, because there's a lot going on. Nothing here you didn't listen to before.

In conclusion, fans of bands like PAIN OF SALVATION, KAMELOT and SYMPHONY X will really dig this, more traditional listeners will need to be very open minded about it. For me it's a 3 star maybe 3.5