Time Requiem are a prog metal band with a little power metal thrown in. 'Optical Illusion' is their third album. The music is composed by Richard Andersson who plays keys, and it took him two months to compose Optical Illusion.

The intro on the first track, 'Sin To Sin', reminds me very much of the intro of 'Roundabout' from the Yes album 'Fragile'. It is a very pretty melody and a great way to begin an album. In fact there are parts of the whole album that remind me of Yes. I guess that isn’t very surprising for a prog metal album!

Throughout the album Andersson displays an enormous diversity in his keyboard playing: at times it sounds almost like a guitar solo such as on the fifth track, 'Ocean Wings'; there are bells at the start of the title track; a harpsichord on 'Sphere of Fantasy'; a church organ on 'Creator In Time'; and not forgetting of course there are more distinctively prog keys, such as on 'Sin To Sin'. The prog style on 'Optical Illusion' is something that sounds quite unoriginal - it sounds like the improvised scales in a frenzied 'Flight Of The Bumblebee' (Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) which is something I don’t personally like and I seem to hear a lot on prog albums, for example the intro of 'Alive' on the Stride album 'Imagine' or on 'Long Distance Runaround', again from 'Fragile' by Yes.

There are more classical influences on the album, such as during the title track, which uses violin keyboards. It does in fact sound rather filmic, which is too dramatic for my taste.

On the subject of drama, the vocals could also be so described. Göran Edman is formerly of Yngwie Malmsteen and he has a very powerful voice.

As far as the rest of the music goes, it is difficult to comment since Time Requiem are somewhat top-heavy with the emphasis on the keys and the vocals. I found that the end result sounded a little hollow. This may be because I am very used to riffs and to have very few on an album is not something I am used to. To be fair, there are some tracks that are stronger than others in this respect, such as 'The Talisman' and 'Creator In Time'. They have more in the way of guitar work than some of the other tracks.

For preference I would opt to listen to Shadow Gallery’s album 'Legacy' than 'Optical Illusion' because it has more substance and stronger foundations resulting in a well-rounded musical sound. Having said that, 'Optical Illusion' is not an album without charm - objectively the vocals and keys are both excellent, even if for the most part they aren’t for me. It is, as always, a question of personal taste.

The star rating is based purely on my objective view and I felt that although the album has many good points there are also some flaws, so:

***

Review by Amanda Hyne

Band website