CARVED IN STONE

Carved in Stone - 1996 )2.6/5) 9 ? Best Song: Storm? Taking a four year hiatus from creating, little-known pomp-prog amateurs Shadow Gallery finally came in with their second installment. I need to learn more skillfully literate transitions from one review to the next. I want to be taken seriously as an intelligent, creative critic with a notable opinion on these matters, and I try to both remain entertaining while balancing it with humor, but that shit's hard. Carved in Stone's like the jump you take from one step to the next when you're not entirely certain of the coming landscape ? so you play it safe. 'Cliffhanger', the opening epic starts off rather enticingly, with a ripping guitar blast, but then the song chops its own balls off, metaphorically speaking, taking nearly six minutes before the jam session begins and the shredding solo duels pop in between guitar and keyboard (sound familiar?) If one thing can be said it's that they know how to play ? they're merely unsure as to why. Lacking vision is one of the major wastes of skill, these days. Another thing, probably a bad idea, but that's just me talking, is how they slap in a cheesy little moody interlude between every song, like they're stage actors for a concert play. The Battle of figar-no. Come on, that was funny! No ? no it wasn't. I hate myself. I can be random you know. I can scream PENIS! Does that make my review better? 'Carved' is a sing-song ballad, hollow and cheesy, but that was to be expected. Oh, those interludes were a terrible idea. It makes the decent normal songs seem fake and pointless. They pretty much are, at this juncture.