Time Signature Keyboards of pain...

Genre: progressive metal

After a mellow intro that reminds me of Rush's "Xanadu", the opening track kicks in with quite dominant keyboard melodies accompanied by a chugging guitar figure that reminds me of the older style of Fates Warning. I must admit that my first thought was "Oh, no, not another so-called prog metal release where everything is drowned in keyboards".

Fortunately, I was wrong... kind of.

There are sections where the keyboards are very dominant. While they more or less get away with it on "Before the End of Time", which on the whole sounds like the love child of Fates Warning and Queensrÿche, the keyboards on "Wings of the Dragon", an otherwise decent power metal song, are just plain silly, sounding like something out of 'The Teletubbies' or something. Just awful! The cheese-ladden ballad "Shattered Memories" is not much better - it sounds like a cheap imitation of the pompuous ballads that Dream Theater are so good at. "The Sign of Tomorrow" is actually a quite good track based on Eastern scales... but again, there are places where the keyboards are just too darn loud. I have a similar problem with "A New Beginning", which is actually a great track, but whose keyboard sections just are inciómpatible with the rest of the song.

Other tracks, like "Strange Reality", which is one of the best tracks on this album, and which reminds my of the early and mid 90s era or Fates Warning, and "Dark Horizon" are very balanced and varied, and very good, progressive metal songs. "Queen of Pain" is also an excellent heavy metal track as is "Voices in the Night".

In all "The Sign of Tomorrow" is an enjoyable listen even though I am not a big fan of how the keyboards are sometimes way to dominant. Musically, this release sounds like a combination of influences from the big three: Fates Warning, Dream Theater and Queensrÿche, without ever reaching their level of genius. But, as mentioned, there is a lot of good stuff on this album to, and, ignoring all the cheese, I think that fans of progressive metal and power metal will most certainly enjoy it.