Ivory Tower - Beyond The Stars

*=Staff's pick	Silence* Secret in Me Foreboding* Game of Life Peeping Tom Beyond the Stars When Thoughts are Running Wild* Flight into the Self Treehouse Theme Treehouse

Genre	Progressive/Power Metal	Andre Fischer	Vocals
Tracks	10	Sven Böge	Guitar
Runningtime	63 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Inside Out	Stephan Laschetzki	Bass
Release	26 March 2001	Thorsten Thrunke	Drums
Country	Germany	PEWE	Keyboards
Similar artists	Dream Theater

The history of this band began in 1996, when Andre Fischer, Sven Böge and Thorsten Thrunke(with two other musicians) founded this combo under the name Ax´n Sex and soon advanced to this current constellation, and this is their 3rd release if you count in the first under the Ax'n Sex period.

This guys are skilled musicians all of them, and I would describe this as a "warm" and soft dose of progressive metal with touches of power metal to it.
In almost every song they have one or two really great, catchy powermetalriffs that as well might have been composed by Mikael Weikath or anyone equal, and there are returning parts of straight-on good drumpounding in this.

But it sounds too much standard over this to recieve any high points from me - a good deal of Dream Theater but with too few interesting and exciting moments. Of course it's nothing wrong with sticking to a certain style of music, but when the songs on an album melts together into one big bowl of sound, than it's a bit off the track for what makes a good album.

They sometime show that they can be really heavy though, with bonechrushing riffs and double bassdrums for shorter moments on the album and every now and then they surprise us with brilliant riffs and hooks, and the most catchy passsages and refrains, but it's way too far between those moments.
Guitarist Böge seem to have a few favourite riffs, and he keeps playing those over and over again. It might not be completely true, but at least it sounds like that - mostly because it gets monotonous and tiring after a a while.

The production is very good - and the drums sound very punchy with a crisp sound as it is supposed to be in progressive music, and the guitars are sharp yet with good depth and power.

The singer passes too without many remarks, since he has a suitable voice for this kind of music, but he should perhaps at this point stay away from the really high notes, which he doesn't do justice.

It is a good album with welldone compositions - but it doesn't leave me with much else than an indifferent state of mind after the cd has stopped spinning.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7,5	8	6

Summary
6,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy