SUSPYRE

Suspyre tickle the senses of prog metal listeners on this self-titled album, on which snatches of a range of different prog metal styles can be caught here and there. There's some really neat djenty sounds going down, some interesting diversions into Atheist-influence jazz metal, and just when you think that's already slightly too many different styles to reconcile the band roll out a section reminiscent of classic Dream Theater.

Indeed, to an extent their very diversity is the problem - the compositions often don't sound very cohesive and the impression is that they're trying to pay tribute to all of their influences at once rather than trying to meld everything together into a distinctive signature sound of their very own. (Maybe it's just me, for example, but I tend to find that the more Dream Theater-inspired sections seem to occur in close proximity to Clay Barton's vocals.) An interesting listen but they need to work on bringing all these disparates together into a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts if they want to really get me excited.