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Genre: progressive metal

Italian progressive metal has often been accused of being too influenced by Dream Theater - to the point that there's talk of countless Italian Dream Theater clones. Well, the Dream Theater influences are present on this album, but Twinspirits are by no means a Dream Theater rip-off, as they opt for a an original and more broad-ranging sound.

Despite their originality, Twinspirits' "The Legacy" is very much a typical prog metal album containing all the elements that make good progressive metal such as pompuous songs, guitar shredding, and spacey keyboards - and there is also the epic suite, in this case a song cycle in five parts. The suite, "The Endless Sleep" is more of a progressive power metal thing - it starts of with a classical chamber music intro but then most of the following riffage is actually not too complex or technical (while the composition itself is, of course, complex).

Maybe I make it sound like run-of-the-mill progressive metal, but Twinspirits deserve credit for injecting a big dose of catchiness into their songs, and especially the choruses are catchy, much like in European power metal. Also, Twinspirits are not afraid of buffing up their songs with riffage that is more reminiscent of classic 80s metal than sophisticated and arty prog metal, and there is also some djent to some of Twinspirits' rhythmic patterns.

On the downside, the music is very cheesy, and some of the vocal melodies sound more like taken from an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical than from a progressive metal album... but then again, perhaps breaking down the genres between metal and musicals is a very progressive thing to do. And hats off to that, but that does not make the music any less cheesy to my ears.

That being said, this is not a bad album at all. It should be finger lickin' good if you are a fan of epic sounding melodic progressive metal.

ovidiu I cannot stop myself complaining about the fact that any prog metal album is cursed to be compared with DREAM THEATER's music!I really hate this,because making today prog metal seems to be like a punishment on the altar of music,because instantly these bands who play this style ,are cursed to automatically be compared with the Americans!It's damn annoying and frustrating for these guys to prove that there is plenty of space under the sun for everybody!Why a musical style must all the time to have as term of comparison-DREAM THEATER!?!?!WHY? Well,I stop blaming DT,because I want to say a few words about an exceptional album of this superbe Italian band-TWINSPIRITS-LEGACY!It's their third album and it's-definitelly-the most mature and complex to date!Great compositions and majestic performance!The album can be divided in 2-the first 6 songs have their own distinctive identity and the monumental track of almost 30 minutes-THE ENDLESS SLEEP-is absolutelly stunning!DANIELE LIVERANI-the mastermind and instigator of this band- is a very important character in today's music and today he seems to be 200 % involved in this new project-TWINSPIRITS-which slowly became the number 1 Italian prog metal act!Goran Nystrom has a fantastic voice-and this makes the difference to other average prog metal bands! Mr Nystrom pushed here some sensational vocals-this album is almost a vocal regal for the fabulous voice of the Swede-trully impressive on every song!LIVERANI's compositions are offering Nystrom the possibility to fully express his huge talent and on this second album with Goran-this guy offers some amazing vocal performances!Amazing compositions,strong guitar riffs,a very good sound of the bass guitar too and perfect drumming technical demonstrations provided by Dario Ciccioni-a long time partner in musical crime for Daniele Liverani!A very strong album -one of the best in 2011,for sure a major highlight of the genre!All our deepest respect Mr Liverani and congratulations for an album close to perfection!4.75 STARS for something magical!