OPTICAL ILLUSION

After the excellent previous album where all musicians realy shine, the head of the band and main composer Richard Anderson decided to have another line up for this album, exit the vocalist Apollo Papathanasio he was replaced by Goran Edman known from Karmakanic, Vindictiv, etc, exit the 2 Flower Kings members and replace with 2 unknow ones to me at least. This new line up in the end done a good job, realy, maybe not so fantastic as before but ok. The vocalist is more towards hard rock style, his melodical vocal lines are ok but was not so impressive as Apollo Papathanasio, to my ears. The music aswell tend to be more on melodic side of prog metal the that powerful neo classical progressive metal from previous albums. Still a pretty decent effort with good moments, pieces like Optical Illusion are excellent and shows true talent of the band. Very worthy again keyboards parts. 3 stars, good but less enjoyble and great then their second effort. I don't think is their best album, and for sure is not, was the best rated album from all 3 and is quite strange because The inner circle is by far their best.