To me, when I expect Symphony X, I want some progressive metal that is only topped by the likes of Dream Theater and Watchtower. So when I got a chance to hear Paradise Lost, I expected it to be like that.
Guess what, IT'S NOT!
Seriously it sounds like Mike Romeo decided to go buy some Pantera CDs all of the sudden and say "Hey these guys were good, lets use their influence!" Bad idea Mike. Because of whatever choice Romeo and the others made, Symphony X now sounds like some progressive groove metal, which as cool as it sounds gets annoying after maybe the first three songs. Then after that, it's really hard to listen to because one of my favorite bands has just gone down the tube.
First of all, Russell Allen's vocal style is drastically altered. Gone is the serious sounding voice of The Odyssey, it's not all about the stupid high pitched whining. It's in every song, back to back to back to back. Come on man, I liked those serious sounding vocals, I liked them a lot, now you went and threw them out of the window. Russell Allen, what the hell has gotten into you?
Mike Romeo's guitar work is just a bunch of Pantera style riffs in changing time signatures. Nothing to great. His solos seem a bit weaker, and there are several of them that are reminiscent of Kerry King and Rick Rozz, complete over use of the guitar's tremolo system. His solos are slower and not as technical as before. What's up with that? That isn't the Mike Romeo I know.
You can't really hear Mike Lepond that well, so I'll skip over to Mike Pinella. The few solos that you do hear by his keyboards are lame. They are slow, and show way to much use of note bending among other things. It's just crap.
The one thing that has improved, Jason Rullo. This guy finally picked up the pace and cut drumming like crap and now is drumming pretty good. Sure he isn't the next Mike Portnoy, and don't expect any double bassing like that of George Kolias or Inferno, but he does do some pretty nice rolls on both double bass and even a few blast beats here and there. He's also faster, way faster, then on the Odyssey. However, the drumming just doesn't seem to fit the new vibe of music. But it's still good.
So in short, if you want to hear progressive metal this year, go buy Systematic Chaos. Stay away from Paradise lost.
That's so funny.
