CD

After Enchant released the superb album Blink Of An Eye (2002), this San Francisco based group around Doug Ott (guitars) and Ted Leonard (vocals), release the new album Tug Of War. They recorded the album with long time and well-respected band member Ed Platt (bass), Sean Flanegan (drums) - as the successor of the incredible Paul Craddick - and BIll Jenkins (keyboards).

It seems to be that lots of Scandinavian bands conquer Europe with tasteful heavy metal. While their fellow-countrymen from Nightwish and Sinergy are more gothic and Stratovarius more progressive, the Finnish band Embraze plays progressive and melodic heavy metal, but their sound is particularly defined by the grunt-like vocals from guitar-player Lauri Tuohimaa, who's also the band's main composer.

After a five-years break since the album The Best Of  (1998), Al Fritsch (vocals, guitars, bass) and Mark Mangold (keyboards, background vocals) teamed up again for Drive She Said to record their fourth studio album Real Life. Assisted by Jonathan Mover (Marillion, GTR, Joe Satriani) they produced a total of thirteen new songs, all in the melodic AOR genre. Although the close harmony choruses sound great Fritsch’s voice doesn't quite convince in every way.

Divinefire are a collaboration of the Finnish multi-instrumentalist Jani Stefanovic - who, by the way, resembles Tom Englund (Evergrey) - and singer Christian Rivel (Narnia, Audiovision). Somewhat later bass player Andreas Olsson joined the band. Glory Thy Name is their debut album. Rivel’s vocals are powerful and impressive and they remind me of singer Thomas Rettke (Heaven’s Gate).

Delain are a Dutch female fronted prog metal outfit with a gothic touch. April Rain is their second album. The band is led by keyboardist Martijn Westerholt (ex-Within Temptation). Because of his illness a few years ago - he suffered from Pfeiffer’s disease - he had to be replaced in Within Temptation, but after a full recovery he formed his own band that originally started as a project. Singer Charlotte Wessels evidently learned a lot and is really making her way to the top of the genre.

Dead Soul Tribe releases their follow-up to their eponymous debut (2002). Featuring mastermind Devon Graves​, who was formerly Buddy Lacky and singer with Psychotic Waltz. The band plays a mixture of prog metal and atmospheric pop with tasteful arrangements of flute, occasional keyboards and acoustic guitars.

D Sound is the moniker for multi-instrumentalist Zsolt Dezsö Murguly from Hungary, the man behind this project. He is the composer, singer, guitarist, bassist and keyboardist on the CD Kisember. He got some help from Csaba Varga (keyboards), Ádám Földes (drums) and singer Liza Vargáné Papp on Without Worlds. Mr. Murguly was able to produce an album well-worth listening to, and more important, well up to our western standards as far as sound quality is concerned.

What if the new revelation of the progressive heavy metal was French? This is how the accompanying information by the Musea-label opens while introducing Cymoryl. They hail from Marseille and their debut is called Strange Evocation. They began as a cover band, back in 1996, with a musical range from Jimi Hendrix and Iron Maiden to... Yes. It's also stated that Dream Theater (DT) has been a major influence to create their 'own' sound.

Guitarist Rusty Cooley is mainly an autodidact. In 1996 he laid his hands on a seven-string guitar and he hasn't been playing anything else since then. He’s a guitar teacher nowadays and meanwhile he composes his music not only for solo stuff, but also for his band called Outworld. His debut album features ten instrumental tracks, two of them being added as bonustracks with the vocals by Outworld-singer Kelly Carpenter, whose voice belongs to the same category as those of Marc Boals or Michael Vescera.

Little is known about Climate Of Earth, a Japanese duo consisting of Taro Matsuda (keyboards, programming, logdrum, vox) and Sanjin Syugetsu (rhythm programming). Their music however, sounds somewhat familiar: I hear traces of the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), but also influences of Casiopea can be found, but the rhythmic component is more prominent. I guess that this music was conceived for discos and thus not particularly interesting for fans of progressive electronic music.