DIGITAL GHOSTS

I love Shadow Gallery. IMHO, Room V and Tyranny ranked among the best prog metal album in this decade. This album however is a big disappointment of this year. I must admit that I'm a bit too skeptical. Maybe it's because the great expectation, maybe I familiarized myself too much with Mike Baker's voice, maybe I don't like prog metal anymore...I don't know. I tried almost 20 spins and all I know is this album is a lame sub-par prog metal.

The new singer, Brian Ashland, is apparently not good enough- actually he is not even a good vocalist. Trying to imitate Mike's singing style, the new singer sounds pathetic. Shadow Gallery used to be a great combination of a gifted and emotional singer, uniquely melodic songs and beautiful arrangement. Now what is left is a lame, old school, haired-band singer in the more heavy wanna-be music. It is too sad that even there are some resemblances in vocal melody, it just in a complete different quality. It's like when you see The Shawshank Redemption once and then you put...lets say...Tom Cruise in the role of Tim Robbins on the second run (Even a camel can act better than Cruise!).

The music is okay, not outstanding. A bit pretentious, it's like the musicians are trying to rock harder.

It's a lame flavor but I'll give them another try on the next release, if any. For me, this album goes directly to eBay. 3 stars for an okay album