Time Signature Wait and see...

Genre: progressive metal

This is not a bad album. There are some cool things on it, to be sure, but it also strikes me as being somewhat generic, and it draws a lot on the big three - Dream Theater, Fates Warning and Queensrÿche. The keyboard is ubiquitous, but not dominant, which I appreciate. There are also some nice groovy riffs which create an interesting contrast to the typical progressive metal elements. The vocalist's midrange voice is also refreshing in a genre which is dominated by high register quasi- and pseudo-operatic vocals. So, there is nothing as such wrong with this album. It is just that it is not really original and does not contribute much to the genre of progressive metal.

I am sure that fans of progressive metal along the lines of Dream Theater will like this album, but don't expect much originality. If you have no such expectations, them you might enjoy the album for what it is.

Stephen Tunnelvision, Finnish progressive metal act, released their debut, "While The World Awaits", in 2000. Their musical style is a mix of Dream Theater and Queensryche, and probably not a coincidence if singer Marko Waara's voice shares the similarity with Geoff Tate's normal register, only his voice is also weirdly blended with Ozzy Osbourne style. The production level is remarkable and crystal clear.

Judging from the opener, "Reach The Moon", Tunnelvision sounds promising. This is a fine melodic-based prog metal track with Malmberg's killer solos shining on every inch of the song, but then suddenly my mood was dropped with the next song, "Rebel". They did a catastrophic job ruining the big early momentum by putting that song there. The next song, "Masquerade", is quite interesting with a bit of jazzy fill and Ollila provided an excellent keyboard solos, but overall the song composition isn't very sparkling, making it a decent track. The slowtempo "Empress" has a very good Verse but then smacked by a dull chorus. "Days of Joy and Bliss" brings up the mood with a nice melody and dynamic tempo, but "Shapeless Visions" saves the day. The chugging riffs were swarmed with a beautiful guitar solos. You can also sense a hint of Arabic flavor in the recipe, definitely a good one and one of my fave here.

The last four tracks apparently are better than the first half. "After The Storm" breaks in with a cool piano intro, accompanied by a thunderous guitar picking. "Dive Down" has a potential of becoming a great track, but they lack of something big on the Chorus, and it seems becoming a bad habit of the band. The best part of the album came with "Tears of Goodbye", an uptempo classic prog metal style with an outstanding chorus and exceptional instrumental solos. "Fractured Dreams" is a good choice of album closer, a piano driven ballad similar to Dream Theater's "Wait For Sleep" pattern.

To sum up, "While The World Awaits" still has too many holes to fill. The band got the potential and has a lot of room for improvements, but based on majority of the songs here which are quite average. They need to work on their songwriting skills and spawned some strong tracks such as "Reach The Moon" or "Tears of Goodbye". This album is something fun to explore if you're a big prog metal fan since Finnish metal act was usually dominated by power metal genre, but if you're a casual fan, I bet there are much better albums out there to pick.