Tunnelvision - Tomorrow

*=Staff's pick	Calling* Silence* Parasites Lightning Time of the Hunter's Moon* The Hermit (Wait and See)* Don Juan's Triumph Ribbon of Tears Long Voyage Back While the World Awaits*

Genre	Progressive Metal	Marko Waara	Vocals
Tracks	10	Juhani Malmberg	Guitar
Runningtime	63 Min.	-	Guitar
Label	Massacre Records	Lauri Porra	Bass
Release	26 Aug. 2002	Mirka Rantanen	Drums
Country	Finland	Vili Ollila	Keyboards
Similar artists	Dream Theater, Symphony X

A group of five Finnish talented musicians decided to form the band Tunnelvision in the year 1995 and their aim was to combine the prog rock of the seventies (Genesis, Rush) with a more metal sound in the veins of DIO and Iron Maiden with each other. These attempts are quite succesful and the result brings very strong parallells to Dream Theater. Their new album, Tomorrow, is their second full-length release and is darker, heavier and straighter than their debut, While the World Awaits, from 1999.

For those of you unfimilar with Tunnelvision, they can be described as a band that crosses the genres of power and prog but with a strong emphasis to the latter. So imagine what Dream Theater sounds like on for instance Images and Words and Awake, simplify things a bit, add some more futuristic keyboards, military march drums and heavier guitars and you have a very good picture of what Tunnelvision is up to. In Dream Theater's case the music also has a tendency to get a bit too complex and elaborated and usually to an extent where the technichal aspects by far outnumber the flow of the melody.
Tunnelvision has their focus on the melodic parts which means that their music is also more straightforward than their American collegues, although the standard tempo- and rhythm-changes are of course present in all songs. Another thing that also usually comes with this genre is long tracks and Tunnelvision is no exception. The tracks average in closer to 6,5 minutes and of course there's one that reaches a two-figure value. Tomorrow also has a superb production and was recorded at Pump Studios in Helsinki and then mastered by none other than Mika Jussila at the nowadays so famous Finnvox Studio, so that could have something to do with it... =)

The only real flaw here is that the vocals perhaps don't come to an equal level with the rest of the installments. The sound of Waara's voice goes great with the music, but sometimes he loses the tone and that happens both in the low and high parts of the scale. He's also being compared to a young James LaBrie (Dream Theater), but I don't really know if that's exactly true. I've also read other reviews where he's being compared to Rob Halford but that's pretty far from reality.

Since I'm way more a fan of powermetal my grade is perhaps not a fair one, I might as well let you know this. It should also be said that Tomorrow needs to spin more than once in your CD-player to get desired effect. Despite this and some minor vocal criticism, Tunnelvision should absolutely appeal to fans of Dream Theater, progressive metallers in general and others who want to explore the genre. I'm settling for the grade "good" and give them great credit for remarkable musicianship.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
9	6,5	7

Summary
6,5 chalices of 10 - Mat