SATANIKA

Not knowing where Rolf Zero would go next for their third album, I was really hoping these guys would improve their craft much more after the dramatic improvement their sophomore had over their debut, especially considering that both albums were released only a month apart. It might not have been a dramatic improvement, but it's there. This album takes a more straightforward and occasionally more hard-rock oriented look at prog, but the real strength here comes from the vastly improved melodies. Any standard prog behavior is backed up by a very strong sense of melodic progression that overcomes their previous albums. There's one other major flaw that has to be addressed: the tango intro, since it's a full three minutes long, feels like an actual song, and is out of place with the rest as a result. Otherwise, this album's quite the strong addition to modern prog, and this third album has brought me to the point where I truly wish more people knew about this band.