Pagans Mind - Celestial Entrance (LMP Music)
For 10 years now, since the release of Dream Theaters colossal ground breaking and genre defining Images & Words album, Ive been waiting for someone to come up with a worthy successor. With Celestial Entrance, Pagans Mind has come mighty close. Many have tried and failed, but this 6 piece band from Norway with their 2nd album proper, have taken the influences of many bands and come up with a classic!
Celestial Entrance combines the best parts of the aforementioned Dream Theater, add some Queensryche Rage For Order, mix in a little Fates Warning, sprinkled with some Agent Steele type lyrics, thrown in a of the bands own style and here you have it.
Pagans Mind get the job done, without being too over the top, technical or boring. A vast improvement on their Infinity Divine debut is the vocals and the melodies. That album was mostly devoid of anything remotely melodic and the vocals seem to get in the way of the music. Here we have the perfect collage, with each song progressive, as well as having melodies that stay in your head (Through Osiris Eye).
Its obvious that Dream Theater are a huge influence on the band, without resorting to out and out cloning, Pagans Mind sometimes come close with songs like (Prophecy Of The Pleiades) but for most they are content use these influences in the best possible way and develop their own style and sound.
The musicianship as youd expect is top notch, vocalist Nils K. Rue, runs the gauntlet, using his vast range to great effect. His high range is in the Ralf Scheepers/Geoff Tate mould, but he also has plenty of mid range. Produced and mixed by successful producer Fredrik Nordström, the sound is what you'd expect from any top class band.
Without doubt this album is one of the best progressive metal albums released in a long, long time and hopefully it will get the label support it richly deserves.
An essential buy of any fan of the above mentioned bands, and anyone into top class melodic progressive metal, one of the best ever.
10/10
http://www.pagansmind.com
For 10 years now, since the release of Dream Theaters colossal ground breaking and genre defining Images & Words album, Ive been waiting for someone to come up with a worthy successor. With Celestial Entrance, Pagans Mind has come mighty close. Many have tried and failed, but this 6 piece band from Norway with their 2nd album proper, have taken the influences of many bands and come up with a classic!
Celestial Entrance combines the best parts of the aforementioned Dream Theater, add some Queensryche Rage For Order, mix in a little Fates Warning, sprinkled with some Agent Steele type lyrics, thrown in a of the bands own style and here you have it.
Pagans Mind get the job done, without being too over the top, technical or boring. A vast improvement on their Infinity Divine debut is the vocals and the melodies. That album was mostly devoid of anything remotely melodic and the vocals seem to get in the way of the music. Here we have the perfect collage, with each song progressive, as well as having melodies that stay in your head (Through Osiris Eye).
Its obvious that Dream Theater are a huge influence on the band, without resorting to out and out cloning, Pagans Mind sometimes come close with songs like (Prophecy Of The Pleiades) but for most they are content use these influences in the best possible way and develop their own style and sound.
The musicianship as youd expect is top notch, vocalist Nils K. Rue, runs the gauntlet, using his vast range to great effect. His high range is in the Ralf Scheepers/Geoff Tate mould, but he also has plenty of mid range. Produced and mixed by successful producer Fredrik Nordström, the sound is what you'd expect from any top class band.
Without doubt this album is one of the best progressive metal albums released in a long, long time and hopefully it will get the label support it richly deserves.
An essential buy of any fan of the above mentioned bands, and anyone into top class melodic progressive metal, one of the best ever.
10/10
http://www.pagansmind.com
