Magnitude Nine - Decoding The Soul

*=Staff's pick	New Dimension* Lies Within The truth Facing The Unknown* To Find A Reason Walk Through The Fire Dead In Their Tracks* Changes Torn Thirty Days Of Night Sands Of Time*

Genre	Melodic Metal	Corey Brown	Vocals
Tracks	10	Rob Johnson	Guitar
Runningtime	46 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	InsideOut	Ian Ringler	Bass
Release	26 Jan. 2004	John Homan	Drums
Country	USA	Joseph Glean	Keyboards
Similar artists	Fates Warning, Maraya

Much has improved since Magnitude Nine debuted with Chaos To Control back in 1998, no change that to all has improved. Every little part has got better, I cant find one thing that has changed for the worse, musically they still moves around in the same area as before and the only real change is that Kevin Chown has left the band to join the pop-band Uncle Kracker and that I know write Nine instead of 9 in the band name.

It would be wrong to refer Magnitude Nine as a progressive band as many would like to do, the progressive overtones and influences are clearly there but not enough to make them a progressive band, this is damn good strong melodic hard rock. There is also less of the Neo-classical overtones on this release, they are still there though but less is better in this case and as the songwriting has become greatly improved Decoding The Souls stands as their strongest effort so far.

With Decoding The Soul which is their third release they have moved a bit closer towards Fates Warning, something that I personally really likes. But it is not so much that they sound like they have tried copy the sound of Fates Warning. Magnitude Nine has managed to create a sound that is unique to them even though Facing the Unknown gives me strong vibes of Life In Still Water by Fates Warning from the album Parallels (1991) that together with Inside Out (1994) are those that lies closest to Magnitude Nine. It is mostly with the guitars licks and in some way how the songs is built the closeness to Fates shines through while on the other hand it gets heavier those comparisons are not as strong. When the music gets heavier and is more carried forward by riffing rather than melodies a closeness to Symphony X feels more accurate, especially in the faster parts Magnitude Nine feels like a less progressive Symphony X that also has similarities in the Neo-classical parts.

One thing that can get in the way is how the album is mixed, the guitars feels separated from the rest of the music. The riffing becomes a wall of sound that disturbs the melodies at some points, and the guitar solos can be heard so much more than the backing music with the result of that the guitar becomes all that you can hear, it takes out much of the music in the background. Although this doesnt create enough of a problem that it takes away any points from the final grade, but it is something that you get aware of and takes up your concentration before you get used to it.

Decoding The Soul is a strong album without any real weak spots in the music, it is so even it is hard to pick out any tracks that sticks out from the rest. It feels like most things has fallen to the right places for Magnitude Nine when they has created ten tracks that all holds very high quality and even though none of them are a real "killer" all of them holds for many listenings and will most likely last for a long time. I guess the typical mood for Magnitude Nine that they has been able to make in their music along with the many similarities with Fates Warning makes this album so easy for me to take in and enjoy.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
5	7	8

Summary
8 chalices of 10 - Thomas