MUSIC REVIEW: Conception - Parallel Minds

"Great, but less ingenious than other Conception albums."

I didn't discover Conception until recently, and it was quite a discovery. The Last Sunset, Conception's impressive debut, featured many typical characteristics of a band's first record. While it shows a bit of youthful naiveté and enthusiasm, sometimes an imbalance between ambition and songwriting, but nonetheless, it is an excellent, distinctive release. Parallel Minds, Conception's second release, shows the band's budding maturity that would come to full bloom on the subsequent In Your Multitude and especially Flow.

Parallel Minds' rhythms are fairly straightforward, and song diversity is a slight problem, but it's still a great metal album. It has a solid punch of insatiable riffing, fiery tempos, and impassioned vocals (Roy Khan is one of the best voices in metal, in my opinion). The progressive tendencies demonstrated in the debut are more interesting this time around, especially in the 9-minute piece "Soliloquy," which offers a ferocious mix of ardent guitars, piano, and a mix of loud and quiet passages. Other than the largely acoustic ballad "Silent Crying," most of the tracks are carnivorous metal cuts. Check out the menacing riffs of "Wolf's Lair," the chugging viciousness of "Roll the Fire," or the crushing title track. You'll see what I mean.

I believe all Conception albums are now out of print. Even if it takes a bit more work than normal, I recommend hunting down all four of their releases.