Following on from their early 2014 release – Part 1 of this 2 part progressive rock opera monster – Vanden Plas deliver the second half of the story over another 9 tracks and 66 minutes of complex and demanding, melodic progressive metal.
If I take both albums track for track, I’m finding myself favoring the first, but in reading my review of the first part, I could almost word for word repeat it here. So I will!
“This is one heavy album. Heavy concept, heavy lyrical content and heavy instrumentation. This progressive metal concept album is an adaption of a theatrical show the band put on, which itself was an adaption of a series of books by author Wolfgang Hohlbein. This is heavy going folks – not for the feint hearted by any means!
Of course it is extremely well done – but it requires a concerted effort on the art of the listener to get to know it. For that reason alone, it's more likely this is going to appeal to the band's already substantial fan base.
Dream Theater fans are going to appreciate the effort involved in writing and executing such a complex piece of music and there's enough here for all fans of progressive metal to appreciate.”
So with that said (again), I will add that this is an even longer piece of work with the shortest song clocking in at 5 minutes and the longest over 13 minutes!
These are not easy albums to get into – they are highly complex and require a lot of time and attention to fully appreciated.
If you are not progressively inclined, I would not recommend this. But as far as a symphonic melodic metal album with a range of emotions and a massive production effort goes, this is about as grand a vision as one could imagine and every bit as epic as expected.
