Probably one of the most expected albums of this fall by metal fans. Three years after the epic “Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, the progressive metal band formed in 1985 by John Petrucci, John Myung, and Mike Portnoy while they attended Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts are back, first time without founding member, drummer Mike Portnoy. His departure raise higher the interest for this new material, but Mike Mangini can not be a disappointment for anybody. Metal fans probably remember his name from his contribution on Annihilator’s third album, “Set the World on Fire” released in 1993, but he also contributed to Extrem’s 95’s album, “Waiting For The Punchline” and more notably he was the drummer in Steve Vai’s live band and recorded several drum tracks for Steve’s “Fire Garden” and “The Ultra Zone” albums. Also Mangini was notorious for setting five World’s Fastest Drummer records between 2002-2005.
The band’s 11th studio album, “A Dramatic Turn of Events” is scheduled for a September 13 release on Roadrunner Records. After several listening, this might be the best, the more balanced Dream Theater album so far. Well, I’m conscious, some said this about their previous album… and every new release of any band usually is nominated as their best, but this time Dream Theater actually quite managed to delivered their best. Read more Dream Theater – A Dramatic Turn of Events (2011)
neo-progressive
Anathema – Falling Deeper (2011)
Scheduled be released on September 5 2011, “Falling Deeper” is an upcoming compilation album in which the band recorded different versions of their past songs, a follow-up to 2008’s acoustic compilation “Hindsight”.
The album was produced by guitarist and main composer of the band Daniel Cavanagh, while the orchestral arrangements are from Dave Stewart who worked so successfully with Anathema on “We’re Here Because We’re Here”. Dutch singer Anneke van Giersbergen sings on “Everwake”. The album was recorded and mixed by Andrea Wright at the legendary Parr Street Studios in Liverpool. Read more Anathema – Falling Deeper (2011)
Henceforth – The Gray Album (2011)
Henceforth are another exciting band from Brazil, another nice surprise after MindFlow and The Tape Disaster. Formed in 1993, they released their first album (Full album on-line streaming) in Brazil in December 2005 via Voice Music, label owned by Silvio Golfetti, guitarist of the Brazilian thrash metal band Korzus. The current line-up is made up by singer Frank Harris, guitarist Hugo Mariutti, bass player Luis Mariutti, drummer Fabio Elsas and keyboard player Cristiano Altieri. Luis and Hugo were former members of the band called Shaaman, and Luis is a former member of power metal band Angra – as of 2007 they are no longer in Shaaman having left the band with singer Andre Matos in order to pursue new projects. Fabio has played in the past with bands Skyscraper and Firebox. Their experience is clearly mark positively the sound and compositions of Henceforth. Read more Henceforth – The Gray Album (2011)
Introitus – Elements (2011)
Introitus are another fine band from Sweden. Digging into the fields of neo-progressive area of rock filled with nice electronic textures, the band gathering around Mats Bender and his wife, Anna and the duo became a 7 members band including their own children Mattias and Johanna on drum and respectively as additional drummer. On extra synth, accordion, flute, fiddle and second guitar is Henrik Björlind, Pär Helje play the lead guitar and on bass is Dennis Lindqvis. “Elements” is their second full-length album following up “Fantasy” and its consist of 9 elaborated songs. It’s a colorful and flowing blend of classic and modern progressive elements extremely nicely combined into a new dimension. They have parallels from Yes through Marillion up to Dream Theater exploring a very wide open area of sounds and managed to blending them into their own. Read more Introitus – Elements (2011)
