ANGELS OF THE APOCALYPSE

I honestly cannot believe this album is rated higher than the excellent Excelsior. Whereas Excelsior was a very interesting blend of metal, fusion, and prog, this album is just dull and over-the-top cheesiness. I have a high toleration for cheesiness, believe me, but this is just too much. The ominpresent in the double bass in the first two running along at a million miles an hour sounds absurd and really ruins any chance they had of being taken seriously. That combined with the fact that the music is a whole is fast paced and overly-bombastic makes the album sound like a high-fidelity megaman sound track. It can be fun in a few places where it's not too ridiculous and there are some interesting parts in the music here and there, but overall this album feels pretty much like a sell out to the early teens set that just discovered metal. 2.5 stars rounded to 3, although I feel as if I am being way too generous.

I get some of the references to ELP in the other reviews, but this album is not for ELP fans. ELP did make some fairly bombastic music, but it was never this over-the-top and it was usually at least a little interesting. Not the same case here in my honest opinion.