SUBTERRANEA

This is a great album, a near-masterpiece. I came close to giving it 5 stars, but a couple of things brought the score down. One is that, this band clearly owes a lot to classic Genesis. That actually isn't bad by itself, but the singer unfortunately isn't as interesting and dynamic as Gabriel. Don't get me wrong, I like the singing here generally, but sometimes it has that bland generic neo sound to it.

The second issue is the length. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to do a double album, but the music better be diverse and fresh-sounding throughout. This one tends to drag on a little and blend together. Keep in mind, I still consider this album to be great, and as long as you don't mind the generic neo-prog sound that permeates bands like IQ, Arena, and Marillion (I don't mind the sound, and tend to like it actually), I guarantee you'd enjoy this album. If you're new to IQ though, start with Dark Matter.

As far as recent symphonic/neo concept albums go, the only other one that jumps to mind is Spock's Beard's Snow. In my opinion, Subterranea is approximately 1 gajillion times better than Snow.