INTO THE EVERFLOW

It's really hard for me to tell which one of their first two albums was the better one since each of them just has been great and exceptional on its own way. Whereas their debut represented a quite heavy hunk hard to get into this album here demonstrated best what the band defined as "progressive hippie metal" in a highly fascinating and capturing way. What we get offered here can be described as a perfect blend of Sabbath-like morbidity and intricate playing in the vein of bands like Watchtower and Fates Warning with a slight touch of Symphony X (actually only in the first track) and weird freaked-out vocals as usual by Buddy Lackey. As said already their style changed quite significantly compared to their debut, the songs on here keep sticking much easier in one's mind and the whole album appears more coherent than "A Social Grace". But this ain't a "lite version" of their great debut at all and in fact there isn't any weak track on here with "Ashes", the title track and "Butterfly" being the absolute highlights.

The opener "Ashes" reveals a highly symphonic sound being rather unique here on this disk and as well quite uncommon for the band until that time. It might remind slightly at Symphony X, but if at all than more to some of their (few) less overblown works and hasn't any similarity with the usual neo-classical/neo-progressive metal stuff but is rather a fantastic atmospheric metal song. "Out Of Mind" in contrast is a very heavy rocking song with some odd breaks and weird psychedelic vocals, certainly an extremely good one. "Tiny Streams" continues in a rather heavy and odd vein having a great spacey and drug-inspired middle part. The title track is actually quite reminiscent of Sabbath revealing a brilliant tense structure and awesome guitar solos. This one's an absolute freaky psychedelic epic masterpiece. "Little People" can't quite hold up the top level of the previous ones but the guitar play is here once again just amazing. "Hangin' On A String" is actually a melancholic ballad but anything like the standard "one ballad per metal album" and Lackey's great vocals are once again shining here on this track. "Freakshow" has to be considered another highlight of this album with awesome dual guitars and great versatility and the greatness of this track can just be topped by the final one "Butterfly" combining all elements of this unique album. Starting rather mellow it rapidly changes into an up-speed and freaky instrumental part before it culminates into a section dominated by Lackey's dramatically sounding vocals. Then all musicians are entering and a short instrumental part leads into the great percussive section being an homage to psychedelic classics starting from Hendrix to Bowie before the album closes once again very quietly.

As a summary I've to say that this album together with their debut has to be considered one of the must-have ones in prog-metal and deserves absolutely a full-score rating. The only downer is its brevity in fact, but its re-released edition contains a great bonus track anyway.