Customer Reviews

The Oracle

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If you are a fan of mindboggling neoclassical shredding, this cd belongs in your collection. Being a fan of Yngwie, Symphony X, and others, I knew that any cd that has George Bellas and Vitalij Kuprij playing together on it would be one to have. The musicianship here is astounding-both of these guys play their respective instruments with amazing speed and precision. The addition of Mark Boals on the vocals reminds me of Yngwie's early days on works such as Trilogy and more recently Alchemy. The drumming and bass surpass the work on those, adding more punch to the shredfest. The only knock I have on this cd are the somewhat shallow, Trilogy-esque lyrics and Boals' vocals. He has amazing range, but he sounds so sterile when he sings. I just don't here much emotion and the lyrics do not help this. I would put this ahead of Yngwie's latest due to better production and wilder solos (particularly the keyboards), but this band needs to work on the lyrics and/or total song arrangement to start to compete with newer neoclassical bands like Symphony X or Adagio.

Being a drummer, Virgil Donati is one of my heroes...when i heard about this band, i immediately bought both albums, and i must say that its a kind of music not new (tends to power metal) but played by excellent musicians: Donati`s playing is impecable as always, Mark Boals voice kicks [bottom], Philip Benoy is totally stuck to Donati`s feet, the guitars sound pretty good and lots of keyboards...Power metal is not my favorite style of music, but i can definitely hear this..