RIPPLES IN TIME (E)

Ripples In Time contains progressive metal from the Danish band Chrome Shift. It's the debut album from founders Otto Schütt (guitars) and Jens Christian Nielsen (bass) together with Rasmus Bak (vocals), Jakob Paulsen (keyboards) and Poul Terkildsen (drums). As we all know Dream Theater (DT) is one of the bands that had a huge impact on the prog metal scene. In the accompanying flyer with this promo again DT is mentioned as one of the main influences, but also Pain Of Salvation and King's X are named. Personally I think Chrome Shift's music is more melodic than the above-mentioned bands, less complex and with more beautiful instrumental and tranquil pieces. The voice of Rasmus Bak reminds me of Damian Wilson. The first track Nightmachine opens with atmospheric keys before an early DT-like song develops and also In My Own Dream could have been performed by DT. Full Moon is a more melodic and heavy AOR-track with a nice chorus. Shadowsong is a short but delicate keyboard instrumental. The band continues with Through, a tranquil and beautiful melodic AOR-song in the style of Journey. It's almost a ballad.Kosmonauten Er Dod is a DT orientated instrumental with lots of breaks and changes followed by Le Temp Des Assasins, a heavy song that can be compared to early Threshold. A true ballad with a tasteful guitar solo is Sorry and the album finishes off with the title track, which is divided in four parts. After a symphonic entrance again the spirits of DT and Threshold meet clearly in parts 1, 2 and 3 with heavy bombastic riffs with lots of breaks and interludes whilst in part 4 the band sits back and finishes this album in a most melodic, orchestral way. A real highlight of this debut album. Nielsen's bass is clearly more than a rhythm tool and the other musicians including vocalist Bak, know what they are doing.

The only criticism could be that both the band and the album lack originality, but on the other hand, if you play music in this genre it's almost impossible to be original. The production is quite right and the beautiful artwork of the cover is by Mattias Norén. In short: a nice and welcome debut from a talented band from Danmark.