IMPERIAL

For this album, Soen have nearly shed off their progressive moniker and have created an album of melodic, mainstream heavy metal, ableit very good heavy metal at that. Good music is good music. I can listen through this entire album and enjoy it thoroughly. Although, at one point in the album I thought I had somehow changed to a Nickleback song (Illusion)! Twangs of their roots live on in songs such as Dissident, Antagonist, and Deceiver with technical riffs and meandering pacing. However, the rest of the album seems to have become much more streamlined and focus on creating exciting music. An example is the song Fortune. The opening seconds of the song start out great, yet jumped straight into a vocal section. More progressive acts would have extended out that opening segment through at least a few more bars. It almost feels like an opening segment was cut out. Other reviewers have also noticed how this album is cut and constructed much more concisely.

To the positive, No disjointed "jamming" exists on this album and almost every song has the length and construction to keep the listener focused. Therefore, I am ranking the album as 3.5 stars rounded up, because while every song is ranked 9/10 or higher in my opinion, it is not a perfect example of progressiveness. I am not a firm believer in the adage of length of song = progressiveness and am not using that to reduce the score, but diversification of each TYPE of song is a flaw. I would have like to see more diversification between songs, with 1 or two songs breaking from the 4.5-6 minute mark that they see. For example, a short and heavy 3 minute piece that ends in an orchestral or atmospheric section to interlude between Monarch and Illusion. Then, Illusion could have been fleshed out with more progressive flair and connection between songs. I find that flow the flow and pacing between songs is an important form of progression, especially with the content of the lyrics and theme of the album. Each song feels separate from the others, yet are constructed so similarly. Soen are just lucky they sound so good! Let's at least get them on the radio if they are going to make music like this!