PSYCHOTIC SYMPHONY

Here's another supergroup of talented musicians who got together from the desire of Mike Portnoy and Derek Sherinian who are almost like old brothers in need to make another album under this "modest" new band name "Sons of Apollo". The album starts with the opening track "God of the Sun" who will not please those who are against every band that does a copy of Dream Theater. The time signatures are almost the same as the "god" of Prog Metal and the guitar sound almost like Mr. Petrucci. The typical sound of Derek Sherinian keyboards can be heard throughout this album and in the song "Divine Addiction" there is a reference to John Lord with the Hammond organ. The drum playing of Mike Portnoy is not at rest as the guitar playing of "Bumblefoot" with some guitar solos. As for the vocals of Jeff Scott Soto, he doesn't have the greatest voice, but it seems to work here. The music is not always progressive, there is some classic hard rock music but it's always pretty intense. The most enjoyable songs are the more complex ones with a long instrumental break like "Labyrinth" who got a nice atmosphere with that ELP and UK keyboards sound and impressive playing of Derek, and as for the last epic song "Opus Maximus", this is an instrumental "tour de force" that sound like Liquid Tension Experiment. Here each musician shows their technique in a very fast tempo before slowing things down with a guitar solo.

You can either love this album and see as a masterpiece or hate it. I don't think it's a classic, but it's a very good album of Progressive Metal. 3.6 stars.