COSMIC HANDBALL

"Cosmic Handball" is very inspired by Dream Theater, it seems, and it offers pretty much run-of-the-mill progressive metal with dominant keyboards, odd time signatures, jazzy and shreddy guitar soloes and other guitar acrobatics, complex song structures, unexpected tempo changes, and very melodic vocals. The music is so complex and heterogeneous that one easily loses oneself in it.

This sounds pretty typical and unoriginal, doesn't it? Maybe, but Silent Memorial are so good at doing what they do, and they're fantastic musicians, the it becomes totally irrelevant whether or not their music is original or groundbreaking.

My favorite track is "I: Carpet Driver", which is full of so many twists and turns that it reaches the level of masterpieces like "At Fates Hands" by Fates Warning and "Erotomania" and "Stream of Consciousness" by Dream Theater. In contrast, the ballad "Lovely Galaxy" is some of the worst sappy music I've ever heard; it really sounds like a failed attempt at making a Queen-like epic ballad.

But all in all, a fine progressive metal album featuring some very skilled musicians. Recommended to fans of Dream Theater and progressive metal in general.

(review originally posted in Danish on heavymetal.dk, and in English on metalmusicarchives.com and progfreak.com)