ALPHA ZENTRADI

Tarry and Oppugn Foul Villain starts as an alternative/college rock piece - ouch! - and you are willing to be disappointed but then the song suddenly turns to a very smooth melodic part with impressing psychedelic guitars. The band continues in this way along the lines of 'the only constant is variation' just as well as with the following songs. The Second Coming - A True Beginning is gripping - the two guitars are interacting with many effects which drives you mad culminating into the crazy PostMeridianisticalRapidEyeMovement, a collage of samples. The Orion Nebula - Mother Earth Is Watching first links to the former song with echo delayed guitars but then glides into a speedy rocking section.

The following (and last) three songs are the musical core. Mercury The Courier has really opened its flower for me after several rounds. Led Zeppelin alike riffs are obvious relatively quick but the song also has a hidden psych flavour - what an excellent example! Alienated vocals are attracting attention on Ouroborus - a melancholic awe-inspiring spaced out one. Finally the epic and emotional Epilogue is wrapped with psych/space portions but has an impulsive hard rocking centre where the band accelerates once more.

A recommended album - heavy art rock, prog metal and psychedelic bordering - ambitious and worth exploring!

This album can be considered as one suite starting off with a nice ambient/spacey intro and for the first time you're forced to question that ALPHA ZENTRADI is considered as a progressive heavy rock band. But immediately The Arrival follows with the message 'You cant live wrong and die right' - violent - a very energetic track where singer Kyle gives all. No, not thrash - the song is based on a punching bass, cracking guitars with a grungy main melody. Together with the heavy riffing World War You - following the footsteps of Tool - this is confirming the prog metal category by all means.

Here Is Where We Are shows singer Kyle with a quite mellow voice besides spacey guitars and more alternative/grunge leanings. Stella[r] is a high-speed rocking thing which makes you dizzy - something for the headbanging branch, especially dedicated to the people in front of the stage during the live gigs. Armistice shows excellent twin guitar work in the second half - psychedelic moments included once more. Sonnenaufgang - oh a german title and they are trying to make it multi-lingual furthermore - a funky bass and plaintive guitar attracts attention - only two and a half minutes long but hard to describe - a highlight! Gute Nacht confuses or enchants (it depends) the listener with another blend of heavy rock and psychedelic. Probably recorded under influence of some mind-expanding substances. Singer Kyle wishes 'Auf Wiedersehen' several times and they carried out this promise with a new album as we know.

ALPHA ZENTRADI succeedes a fresh and energetic effort, twin guitar driven, rough and unpolished. For some just the latter makes it extra attractive, for others who like it more sophisticated: another album followed only one year later - 3.5 stars really.