Shadow Gallery - Tyranny

"Mike Baker is the worst prog-metal singer ever."

Shadow Gallery has one thing going for them: they're all great musicians. Unfortunately, it takes more than chops to make a good progressive metal record. Tyranny is a concept album dealing with a man's moral conflicts and struggle against people who make weapons of war. The lyrics are pretty simple, but it delivers the story well and hangs on to an important element of humanity that makes it touching at times. Anti-establishment prog-metal concept album? Honestly, this sort of thing SHOULD be right up my alley

Shadow Gallery's sytle of Queensryche meets Dream Theater progressive metal (with lots of pianos) is all done well, but I can't get past the vocalist, Mike Baker. He is awful. I guarantee he's the reason this band has never performed live. His range is ultra-thin and his delivery lacks balls. I think the glaring inadequacies of his voice are only barely covered up by the production and the big vocal harmonies, so a live performance would shatter the illusion. To quote the reviewer who goes by the name "Methuselah", "He's a singer with emotion at best." And yeah, he's emotional, but I really don't like his actual voice, so it just doesn't work for me.

"New World Order," where most of the vocals are sung by ex-Royal Hunt vocalist DC Cooper is the best song on Tyranny. Harsh. I think this proves to me that Shadow Gallery can write strong songs, but the overall delivery is undermined by Baker. The other great song is the beautiful ballad "Spoken Words" where the story's hero talks with his cyber lover (LOL) over the phone. His cyber pal is voiced by female singer, who doesn't have a great voice herself, but the harmonies between herself and Baker are absolutely exquisite. The graceful violin and piano melodies make it so much better.

But that's about it. Aside from "New World Order," "Spoken Words," and the blazing instrumental intro, the rest of the album leaves me ice cold. You will find awesome prog metal elsewhere. This is "ok" at best. Heck, the Shadow Gallery debut is actually better than this because the music is so damn cheesy you don't take it as seriously, and weak cheesy vocals work better in that environment. Here everything is so serious that I can't take it seriously with Baker's cheese.