Thank you so much, I'll give it a try and will come back to drop my impressions.
@Mare: Uhmm... well, I think you're right, one has to consider the conceptual meaning of the album to really evaluate if the vocals and this different sound actually fits, a consequent and very necessary aspect I left aside. But now I think that it is precisely the new subject, darker and rather bitter, which makes me feel disappointed in the end, not the music itself. However, I'm gonna come back to the album and give it another chance.
Btw, now that we are talking about other bands, I would like to recommend something that impressed me quite a lot, recently. The band is called
"Alias Eye", I think they are... swedish or some place over north-Europe, but the singer is native american, and they've released two albums so far.
The first one "Fields of Names", doesn't sound that good to me, but the second one totally caught me in its spell. It's called
"A Different Point Of You" and I think it's AWESOME, great vocals, great melodies, so fresh that sometimes makes me feel like the first time I heard "Unweaving the Rainbow". I ordered it right away through their main web site at a very reasonable price.
Once again, I'm not swedish, nor have anything to do with the band, but I like to share this with you guys. Here you can find some reviews from the fans (including the one I wrote there):
http://www.progarchives.com/Progressive_rock_discography_CD.asp?cd_id=4229
And here you can download some samples and order the album, if you're interested:
http://www.dvsrecords.com/dvs011.htm
(I think the best song is "Your Other Way", though, you listen to that track and you can't stop listening to the CD!!).
Hope you like it!!!