THESSERA

In any case, Thessera's "Fooled Eyes" is a damningly good debut album from this band based in Juiz de Fora (Minas Gerais State in the southeastern part of the country), which harks back (with great comparative competence) to the initial and more melodic releases from mighty Dream Theater (and Kevin Moore's gifted composing skills), notably "When Day and Dream Unite", "Images and Words" and "Awake", with some Fates Warning-like influence to spice things up from time to time.

We are talking here about a very good production for a debut album, skillful musicianship and excellent balance between guitar, bass, keyboards and vocals - and no, they are not just a clone of any other "bigger" band out there - one can easily see some natural talent there.

The main highlights are definitely "The Gallery", "Broken Psyches", "Candlefire" and "The Leading Roles".

What about downsides? None really, apart perhaps from the relatively unnecessary and somewhat lame-sounding spoken parts à la Dream Theater's Metropolis Pt. II (well, it is a conceptual album after all)...but even these are far from impacting the greater good of the album, which easily deserves a 4+ rating; it would be great to see what these folks have in store for the coming years - hopefully they won't stop at the first album (given that their last public release is a 2009 demo song currently streamed on Myspace)..!

It certainly doesn't sound like a debut, and comes across with the power and passion of Fates Warning with the keyboards cutting across the guitars and the dramatic drums always driving the band on to greater heights. It isn't the sort of music that I would have imagined coming out of South America as they keep their Brazilian roots in check a lot of the time and produce music that is very hard hitting and very North American/German in flavour. This is going to take a lot of the prog metal community by storm ? debuts aren't supposed to sound as strong and polished as this. It isn't perfect, there is still room for improvement, but for a starting place it is a damn good place to be. If you enjoy prog metal then you need to go to the site and listen to some of this, at least. www.thessera.com or www.progrockrecords.com

Thessera from Brazil is a progressive metal band with moderate succes so far in prog metal zone, maybe because they release so far a single album in 2006 named Fooled eyes issued by Prog rock records. The band is clearly influenced by bands like Dream Theater, Symphony X, the instrumental passages are quite great in places, the voice aswell remind me of Fates Warning sometimes, all in all more then ok album. The intro is a great instrumental piece that show the potential of the band followed by the best track of the album, The Gallery, lenghy piece, where specially the keyboards are top notch, nice great voice for sure. Broken Psyches is another highlight with excellent guitar parts, piano is used in couple of piece and is very well melted witht he rest of the instruments. Quite complex prog metal, with some great moments, melodic and in same time very skillful album. So, one of the good prog metal releases coming from Brazil, it's a shame that they release only this album, I don't know if they are still active in this bussines, I would like to see a second album soon if there will be a second output in the future, because they had potential but some how they remain due to this release and some of the musical passages followers not leaders in this zone. Still an album that can be descovered by prog metal listners. Great cover art and great booklet.

Probably the guitar solos and ""Dream Theater in our way of doing thing"" music. OK, it's easy (oh, they just sung line of lyrics "it's not esy" but believe me, it is), I quite like Dream Theater, I rate them very high, but at times, I wish they would do the music little bit different, but as I said, from time to time. And this is it. I don't say that they're clone of each other with few things made other way, but the rest same. No. They're exploring possibilities of prog metal in places where I haven't heard many bands before. Because of this, it sounds fresh and new. But same in matter of melody. Sadly, when somebody is compared to DT, he fails at ""who's better musician, who can play his instrument better." test. But it's unfair to think like that, because they play quite good.

4(+) unless you hate prog metal, it's excellent choice

Fooled Eyes is a rock opera, a little in the wave of Ayreon's The Human Equation. In this case, Marcelo Quina gives life to the five characters.

Thessera belongs to the metal tradition of Pain of Salvation, Symphony X or Dream Theater, there is not break but continuity with such previous models, without lack of their own personality that is declared, for example, in some jazz-flavour moments here and there. The surprising thing of Fooled Eyes is the perfection with which the band puts all these influences together.

Although the 9 themes constantly change their music orientation, transitions are kind and natural. From the powerful instrumental opening in Le Chef D'oeuvre to the dramatic finale in Heaven's Gate, there's no fade in the interest. The Gallery is a very good theme; Broken Psyches is another great track, and The Leading Roles a very beautiful song. Party's On manifests lots of ideas and talent. With Inverse and Conflagration the emotional tension of the story rises.

4 stars, and waiting for their next release.

The guitar is the main instrument here, but with a sound not too often heard in prog metal. Polished, slick and somewhat subdued, the guitar sound has similiarities to Dream Theaters debut "When Dream And Day Unite". And the guitar solos offered deals just as much with drawn out notes and melodies as with scale masturbation - wish more guitarists would do that...

The piano is used on quite a few tracks to carry the melody as well, and it fits perfectly. Synth is mainly used to enhance moods.

There are touches of jazz and fusion here and there in the songs; unusual for a prog metal band - but it works quite well here.

Main weakness on this album is the vocalist; doesn't quite cope with the task at hand in my opinion.

But a good debut nontheless, and should be checked out if you're into this genre.