SUN CAGED

So where did this band come from ? I haven't got a clue, I recently discovered them. Strange because they are Dutch and so am I but really, there is so much prog around these days and I'm not particularly "interiorly" interested so I missed this release of 2003 for a couple of years and therefore I can only do the review just now.

This is Dutch prog metal. I didn't even know that existed so I was very surprised it turned out to be really great as well. This is a very good effort for a debut. The vocals are awesome, I'm not easily enthusiastic about vocals, in fact I can do without them in most cases but in this band they play an important role. In some songs they remind slightly of Ted Leonard of Enchant and believe me, that's a compliment for Andre Vuurboom. The instrumental part is also well cared for to say the least. This band does also have a great guitar player though I have to say he plays mostly shorter riffs and I usually like the more extended ones but ok.

The songs are nice as well but I can't say they are exceptional compositions like Dream Theater or Symphony X sometimes make. But there's no doubt this is obvious prog metal, the songs are good enough for that qualification. Special remark by the way for Unchanging (last track), a really fantastic metalballad that is !

So alltogether I'm thrilled about this dutch asset to prog metal and I think they truely deserve 4 stars for this.