Lost In Thought – Opus Arise

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Opus Arise starts promising enough, with a fairly heavy guitar sound and a suggestion of some progressive influence, not too far away from the likes of Pagan’s Mind. However, as soon as the singer kicks in the album immediately loses any charm it started off with. The band’s singer has a thin, weedy voice that really doesn’t do the rest of the music any justice. Sure he can hit the high notes very well, but if a singer has a poor sounding voice to begin with, reaching and holding those notes seems rather pointless. As such any promise the band might have had is pretty much spoilt. Lost in Thought don’t manage to make up for their singer’s shortcomings with decent material either. The album might lean towards progressive power metal music, but doesn’t actually have any new ideas of its own. This is just progressive metal in the generic sense, not the true sense of the term, simply rehashing ideas other progressive metal band’s have already used. They certainly can play – there’s some great guitar work on display, this is true – however simply being able to play well does not make one’s music good. Had they a vocalist that could really carry the band, rather than one that sounds rather grating, then perhaps this album would have merit as an enjoyable even if not an innovative metal record. As it stands though, Opus Arise shows off a great deal of technical merit from the band, but beyond that it isn’t very good.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Power Metal, Progressive, Quick.Play Reviews, Lost In Thought