UMUR
"Carved In Stone" is the 2nd full-length studio album by US progressive metal act Shadow Gallery. The album was released through Magna Carta Records in June 1995. It´s the successor to the eponymously titled debut album from 1992. There have been a couple of lineup changes since the debut album as Kevin Soffera (drums) and Gary Wehrkamp (piano, guitar, synthesizer, backing vocals) have been added to the lineup, making Shadow Gallery a sextet on "Carved In Stone".
While the debut album certainly had its fair share of quality moments, intriguing songwriting ideas, and high level musicianship, it was still a bit of a mixed bag in terms of consistent songwriting, and also featured a sound production which left a bit to be desired. In comparison "Carved In Stone" is a much more consistent release, and all the other features have also been given a lift in quality. The sound production is more well sounding and powerful (although still not as polished as the most well produced contemporary releases), the musicianship is on a high level on all posts, and the songwriting slightly harder edged and focused. "Carved In Stone" is generally not a very hard edged progressive metal release though, and there are many parts of the album, which have more in common with progressive rock than heavy metal (the occasional use of flute is one of them).
I hear influences from artists like Queensrÿche (the vocals, the melodies, the atmosphere), Dream Theater (some of the most complex instrumental parts of the album), and Fates Warning (only a few times, but the influence is there), but also artists like Queen and various other 70s progressive rock acts. Savatage and their most Broadway musical styled tracks are also a valid reference, as Shadow Gallery often arrange their songs and vocals in a way that is similar to Broadway musical style arrangements and vocals (listen to the opening of "Don't Ever Cry, Just Remember" for proof of that). Classical music influences are also heard throughout the album (although this is not neo-classical metal in any way or form).
"Carved In Stone" features no less than 20 tracks and a total playing time of 71:03 minutes. Most of the first 12 tracks are constructed with one "regular" track followed by a shorter interlude track, before the 13th 21:56 minutes long epic track "Ghostship" kicks in. "Ghostship" is subdivided into 7 shorter tracks (although they all flow into each other to form the full "Ghostship" track), and "Carved In Stone" closes with the hidden classical influenced track "TG94 (Thanks Giving 1994)". So it can definitely be labelled a mammuth size album. Shadow Gallery produce quality all the way through the playing time of the album though, and even the hidden track is quite the treat (excluding the rather annoying first couple of minutes of silence and knocking sounds).
I wouldn´t call "Carved In Stone" a perfect release by any means and the Broadway musical influences are slightly cheesy in my book, but there´s no denying the high level musicianship and compositional skills involved in the project, and the good features of the album far outweighs the bad. The album features both the most beautiful melodies and the crazy jaw-dropping moments of technical playing that only the greatest progressive metal artists can produce and a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.