ORIGIN(S)

A nice gift.

This album has been posted as a free download on their homepage together with their other free downloads albums. An offer fans of Neo-Prog and Progressive Metal should not decline. It is therefore strange and almost tragic that this is the first review of this album.

Anasazi comes across as a mix of AOR, Neo-Prog and Progressive Metal on this album. Like a mix of Marillion, Bon Jovi and Dream Theater. The music here is pretty commercial and should have pretty huge commercial potential if one of the major record label had put this album out as a CD. There are some DT like guitar chugging and riffs here. But I would by no means call Anasazi a metal band. There is far too much Pink Floyd in their sound for that. Sometimes, the music makes me cringe. Mostly the ballads where the associations to Bon Jovi is pretty obvious. The vocals too would make a Bon Jovi fan hitting the download button and that pretty quick. I am by no means a fan Anasazi's mix of commercial music. But I admit that I have been pretty comfortable in the company of this album. I like the music, although some of it makes me cringe and some of it sends me to sleep.

There are some good songs here. All of the songs are good, in fact. But they are not great. I still like this album and I will download and listen to the other Anasazi albums too. Please give Anasazi a chance..................... and peace too, btw.

3.25 stars

It should be obvious to many who read my reviews that I'm not a big metal fan. I think that it's too easy to feign power in music by simply turning up the distortion on the guitar. So the metal group who get good reviews from me are the ones who manage to rise above fast, but plain guitar licks and attain something more.

Anasazi almost achieves that for me. I find their music very listenable. And that's good, but at the same time, while they are good, they never quite seem to attain greatness, The music is mostly standard prog metal fare, with heavy chords, but enough odd melodic twists and time change turns to keep me listening.

They also have a very obvious Pink Floyd influence. That can be heard in many of the guitar solos. Justify, in particular, owes a great deal to Floyd's Dogs.

Not a bad album to me. A metal fan might enjoy it more. At least there's no growling.