Section A - Parallel Lives

*=Staff's pick	Hunted* The Gift* Awakening Dark Alliance Moment Of Truth Hoping For A Miracle Changing The Past Beginning Of The End*

Genre	Progressive Metal	Andy Engberg	Vocals
Tracks	8	Torben Enevoldsen	Guitar
Runningtime	57 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Lion Music	Pontus Egberg	Bass
Release	27 Feb. 2006	Johan Koleberg	Drums
Country	Denmark/Sweden	Torben Enevoldsen	Keyboards
Similar artists	Vanden Plas, Lion's Share, Dream Theater

Section A is the brainchild of multi instrumentalist Torben Enevoldsen. The group was founded in 2001 when Torben decided, after two instrumental albums, that he would like to add vocals to his songs. After a while he had formed a band filled with well known musicians such as former Lion's Share singer Andy Engberg and Andreas Lill, the drummer for Vanden Plas. In 2003 they released the debut entitled The Seventh Sign which received quite good reviews.

Now when it's time to follow up the debut album Andreas Lill has left the building but the talented replacement Johan Koleberg fills his shoes very well. Torben Enevoldsen has written all the music on Parallel Lives and you realise that this is first and foremost his band. The guitars are always in the front with a lot of great licks, leads and shredding. Even though he is a fantastic guitar player it tends to be a little bit over the top with solos and guitar leads on the whole, at least for me. As for the vocals, Torben did no mistake when he hired Andy Engberg. He shines on this record and in my meaning he is the biggest asset of Section A.

I would like to describe the sound of Section A as melodic progressive metal. Even though they all are great musicians the focus lie on the songs, with the tiny exception that the guitar solos could have been decreased a bit. Parallel Lives is a concept piece based around a story of William, who by unknown forces gets the gift to travel between parallel universes. The story is carried forward with short interludes between the songs which creates a nice cinematic atmosphere.

Even though the record are quite even there are two songs that caught my interest little bit more than the others. The Gift must be considered as the highlight with the brilliant riff which paves the way for Andy's vocal melody, simply outstanding! The closer Beginning Of The End has also got a fantastic riff and the choir they use in the chorus are very tasteful and adds that little extra something. On these two tracks the melodies and hooks are really strong and if it is something the other tracks lack, it is just those hypnotizing melodies. In conclusion I would say that this album is really good and if you are into the progressive genre you should most definitely check them out.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
7	8	7

Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Hawk