SIGNS

Beyond the Labyrinth is a young flamand prog metal band from Belgium who has two albums in their pocket since now. Signs is their first one from 2005. It took me longer on this album than usual , because I can't decide if is a 3 or a 4 star album, maybe in the end is in between. I was very surprised to see that this album doesn't have any reviews yet. While is not among the top band in prog metal zone, they manage to create something intristing in this field. One of the bands that doesn't sound as DT , they are influenced by de melodic side of prog metal, sometimes they are toying with neo prog, the resoult is a pleasent album all the way, similar to Palace Terrace or even Red Sand. What struck me on this album at first, second , third and so on listings was the key passages made by Danny Focke, excellent arrangements who interlude superb with the rest of the bunch. As I said they play a melodic prog metal, very rare they top it with rougher sound, even some neo prog elemnts are here and there. Very good are also the guitar chops, very sure and very inventiv. What I don't really like is that the pieces, almost all of them are mid tempo, not a single one is more faster, not a bad thing after all, but in the end is kinda boring, I mean you can easely loose the core of the album because of that. So, overall a good album, pleasent all the way, with nice pieces flowing from mellow arrangements like Morning Rendezvous to a more rougher sound as Digital World, showing that they release a good debute , but not excellent. The rest of the pieces are ok, not a weak one, but nothing really groundbreaking either. I"m looking for their next album Castle in the sand, maybe this time they've done it. 3.5 is the fair rate.