Metal Blade is one of those labels who were never afraid of investing in what one could describe as "unusual outfits". How do I know that? Well, let's just say that my personal record collection includes many such releases, but even so, I was quite surprised by the label's decision to add 3 to their roster, back in 2006. The band's first release with the label was the re-issue of "Wake Pig" - an album that I didn't particularly warm to, but which guaranteed an interesting future for the band. My curiosity as to how this unusual outfit will evolve in musical terms would finally be satisfied a year later with the release of their fourth full-length album "The End Is Begun", the review of which you are about to read.

Even though the majority of the compositions that are featured in this album are based on simple melodies, I would be lying if I were to tell you that "The End Is Begun" will be an easy album to digest. Bringing together influences from modern day Rock and 70's progressive music, this thirteen-track release is divided into two different groups of compositions that relate to each other in a strangely coherent way. If you were to stop listening to the album after the first couple of tracks you would easily be misled as to the general character of this project. The opening track "The World Is Born Of Flame" provides a very powerful introduction to the album, with melodies that reminded me a lot of Kansas and heavy guitar riffs that carry the signature of John Petrucci (Dream Theater). The following same-titled composition shows that a band can sound heavy even when an acoustic guitar is performing all the leads.

From that point onwards, the album presents a variety of different compositions, some of which I managed to relate to straight away and others that I found too modern and open minded to my liking. Songs like "My Divided Falling" (nice funky base), "Serpents In Disguise" and "Bleeding Me Home" present an interesting combination of modern Rock/Pop vocal melodies with more "demanding" guitar arrangements, but I am afraid that they were not what I was expecting to hear from this album. On the contrary, I really enjoyed listening to the more atmospheric compositions such as "All That Remains", "Been To The Future" and the eight-minute composition "The Last Day" which makes the band sound as a more modern and melodic version of Yes.

Finally, other interesting compositions were the Hard Rock based "Diamond In The Crush", the main theme of which reminded me of Thin Lizzy (see "Stone Cold Sober") and "Shadow Play" which may have nothing similar with Rory Gallagher's classic but whose vocal melodies seem to have been influenced by Barclay James Harvest.

Once again I find myself facing a great dilemma in my attempt to rate a release from this band. If my task was to simply reward the levels of musicianship that the members of this band have presented in this release, nothing would have prevented me from granting all five stars. The thing is, though, that my approach to rating albums is generally based on their overall effect on me and knowing that "The End Is Begun" is not going to be occupying a slot in my CD player very often leaves me with little choice. Will this band ever manage to break my three and a half star rating 'barrier'? That remains to be seen!

***½

Review by John Stefanis