GOOD APOLLO, I'M BURNING STAR IV, VOLUME ONE - FROM FEAR THROUGH THE EYES OF MADNESS

Always and Never - Here begin the lyrics, and thus also my dislike for the band. Stupid Armory Wars...

Welcome Home - Absolutely wondrous track. This is heavy symph prog that reminds of neoclassical metal. The lyrics are, again, ridiculous and ungrammatical. Still, the track is absolutely the best on the CD.

Ten Speed (Blah Blah Too Long Title) - Extremely catchy, and with some excellent guitar. This has very clear pop-rock influence, and it's basically an intricate punk song.

Crossing the Frame - Very reminscent of ska and pop-punk. It's, of course, a catchy tune. Lyrics are ambiguous to anyone who is uninformed about the Armory Wars (i.e. Me). But they're actually tolerable, and poetic in this song ("Casting quarters into wells that hold our dreams"). It's a shame I don't know who "Newo" is.

Apollo I: The Writing Writer - Oh, darn, the lyrics have taken a turn back to amazing pomposity. The ambient synthesizers are the interesting feature on this track, and the music features a couple of cool time changes (Singing "Come on bitch why aren't you laughing now?" in 6:8 is a lot cooler than singing it in 4:4)

Once Upon Your Dead Body - A creepy pop track, with a very punk rock bass line boring the hell out of me throughout much of it ("Duh-duh-duh-duh"). No I will not drink "your chemical", Claudio. This is the first bad track on the album. The synthesizers at the end don't make it prog, they just make it pseudo-prog.

Wake Up - Yak. I can't even stand this. It's really touching that Claudio will kill anyone for his sweet-heart, but I really can't take the simpering vocals and repetitive sentimentality. The orchestra comes in at some point, but really, any one who wants to can add an orchestra to something, and it still won't be prog necessarily.

The Suffering - Oh my God, does this track rock or what? Catchiest on the whole album. Probably the best non-prog offering. Don't let its genre (or lyrics) keep you from enjoying it.

The Lying Lies and Dirty Secrets of Ms. Erica Court - Just a punk track, not much to see here, unless you want a good laugh from the lyrics.

Mother May I: It's, again, a punk track with obscure lyrics. Too bad it's too chilled out to be as entertaining as The Suffering.

The Willing Well I: Fuel For the Feeding End - Oh yeah, this track combines the best of both worlds, in the same way The Cardiacs do. Excellent instrumentation, as well as a punk energy behind it all. The lyrics are just...well, look them up for yourself. Claudio can be scary in the same way Cate Blanchett was in Fellowship of the Ring.

The Willing Well II: Fear Through The Eyes of Madness - It starts off promisingly with some synthesizer, transforms into an alternatively upbeat punk and metallish-drone beginning. Towards the middle there's a bit of good rock n' roll (a bit like Wolfmother, say), which then transforms into very cool prog metal! Although repetitive towards the end (to the point of being more punk than metal, I think), it's a great, great track.

The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth - Nice electronic intro...followed by a song we've heard before. It's Apollo again...whoopdy-doo. This is followed by a neat bit of dual guitar playing, to make up for the repetition. 5 minutes in...it devolves into pop-punk some how. In fact, it's the poppiest punkiest part of the album. And then we go back to Apollo I again (which is a big relief, as I don't like too much pop punk).

The Willing Well IV: The Final Cut - A fairly neat prog-metal offering. At 3:30, it begins to sound like David Gilmour is doing a guest appearance. It's wonderful. The final minute of the song is an absolutely hilarious bluegrass acoustic jam. It's just great that they decided to end this portion of a dark, epic saga in a very lighthearted, folksy way.

In summary, the album is fairly polarizing. It's divided between mostly 2/5s and 4/5s. I will give it a 3/5, but I would recommend you download certain tracks rather than buy the whole album. I would also recommend buying the Armory Wars comic if you want to have a prayer at understanding the lyrics.

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