ENERGETIC DISASSEMBLY

Many people consider this to be the start of progressive metal, and to be honest, I'd have to agree with them to an extent. This is definitely one of the albums that took metal from leather jackets with patches of all the classic metal bands and something for headbanging to infusing it with jazz fusion and adding the complexity of progressive music. Just don't listen to this and then be surprised that it doesn't sound like Dream Theater.

Doug Keyser and Rick Colaluca together make up one of the best rhythm sections that I've ever heard in metal. Billy White has some ridiculous soloing and Jason McMaster has an aggressive voice that of course works well with this type of music. At times I can almost hear a bit of Geoff Tate in his vocals to be honest. The songs are well constructed and the production quality is what you would expect of more extreme metal circa mid-80s. This is an absolutely groundbreaking record with few, if any, flaws found in it.

And yet, to be honest, some of the songs feel like they run together and start to feel a bit similar, but that's not really surprising considering this was the first time something this technical was ever seen in metal. Obviously it's going to take some time to get the kinks worked out. If however you want to hear something that was totally refreshing and groundbreaking, as well as technical and a bit more aggressive, then I would definitely recommend this album. 4 instruments shredded to bits out of 5.