Reviewed by Andy Long

Images Of Eden's press release bills them as "one of the greatest progressive metal offerings of all time" and other such hyperbole. Wish I had a pound for every press release I'd read like that! Well, whilst I can't quite agree that Images Of Eden are poised to threaten Dream Theater, Shadow Gallery or Opeth in the near future, I will admit that this is actually a very good album. Excellent musicianship, keyboard-laden backgrounds with chunky guitar riffs punching their way through, great lead guitar work too. For a three-piece band they have a very big sound, guitar, bass and keyboard duties are shared by Gordon Tittsworth and Dennis Mullin, with Matt Kaiser at the kit; I wonder whether they pull in a couple of extra guys for gigs. The three part prog-rock epic title track is the highlight of the album, but there's not really a lot of weak material here and I think that, if they carry on in this vein, in the future they could exceed this album by a long way. I'd like to see some more musically adventurous stuff in terms of unusual time signature and modal stuff, but so far they're off to a good start.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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