ANTHOLOGY

On "Anthology" the Kuwaitian Bader Nana establishes himself as a strong Neo Prog act, and as my personal favourite new prog artist of the 2010s. After the spectacular "Wormwood" he comes up with another release of insanely catchy and tasteful choruses, moog-like synth solos, prog metal riffing and some subtle Eastern elements. And man, does it work. These days I don't seem to get goosebumps that easily (probably due to aging a bit), maybe five new songs a year can produce them, but on the first two tracks "The Discovery (Apsinthos)" and "Daydreamer" I find them all over me. The lyrics are somewhat simple but manage to catch those secure and always flowing deep emotions that most of us have pretty well. The greatness doesn't even subside that much as "Liquid Fire" presents a layer of tasty grooves and melodies, a stellar track. "The Unbeliever" is a bit downside and puts the album as a whole just below five stars (it feels like a crime to prevent it from having them all, still). "11:11" is a dreamy melodic instrumental featuring some collaborated acoustic guitar and percussion providing some even pretty folkish parts. "Allie" is a traditional ballad, almost close to boring but manages to get away with it, being only a mediocre track. The album gets its tension back on "War" which while being maybe the 'metallest' track on Anthology has a nice late-Dream Theater like atmosphere and again an amazingly good chorus. The ending mini-epic "The Great Beyond" is an appropriate closer, not quite on the masterpiece level these kinds of songs could be but a very good track nevertheless. Right now, after listening to this album I'm feeling like Kevin Moore never left Dream Theater and I'm again that teenager going to highschool who was just getting into prog through progressive metal.. and simply enjoying it very, very much. And another thing I'm finding is me, someone who almost intensely dislikes track-to-track reviews, doing it exactly like that. Well, I suppose this album is worth of an exception.