ROOM V

For the most part I find this album to be bland progressive rock. The guitar is obviously quite well done, if you want to hear a ballad in every song (Though he's talented, that's a given). I came to progarchives.com to get away from the repetition many artists in punk, heavy metal, and mainstream all seem to currently display. Each song on this album is clearly in the same vein. What I mean by that is, each track could most likely stand out and make Shadow Gallery look incredible talent and style wise. When you listen to the album all the way through, hopefully you realize there are many other bands out there who don't sound the same in every song on any given album. "Room V" is such a huge step up still, especially in the 'talent' area, I give this three stars, but to me it's just tacky 80's hair metal overdone, nerdy, singing about things I never needed to hear about anyways. I wish I could get something NEW and fresh from this band rather than the same song over and over again. If you enjoy this, good for you, I'm happy for you. But I don't.

Every song on Dream Theater's "Octarvarium" and "Images and Words" albums are completely different. Sacrified Sons sounds nothing like These Walls. -- For Example Room V... is just Room V, regardless of how amazing they are with a guitar and drums. But if you don't like Dream Theater, lets take another 2005 album. "Deadwing" from Porcupine Tree, Track 01. Deadwing -- heavy, Opethy tone from Mikael. Track 02. Shallow -- Perhaps not "prog," but Deadwing was "prog"-ish. Track 03. Lazurus -- Oh my god, what a touching song. Even if you don't like it you have to admit it's nothing like the previous two (gentle lyrics/tone and soft keys). "Room V" is very consistant, so if you like Shadow Gallery you will immediately fall inlove with "Room V," if you've never heard of Shadow Gallery and like 80's-ish metal and enjoy some "Progressive Metal" then it would be my guess you would also fall in love with "Room V." If you listen to Prog-rock to be wowed by talent, "Room V" should be interesting for you. I look for those things of course, but there's more to it than just that. In my opinion, the flaw: After a few listens, it all begins to sound somewhat mainstream, but not only that. Every song blends together to make really one track cut into 14, it drags on way too long to keep my attention.

Either you like the sound or you don't, and that is Shadow Gallery, along with most artists I don't like. There's not much of a middle ground. I hope you don't LOSE money, make sure you know what you're doing.