Shadow Gallery - Shadow Gallery

1. "The Dance of Fools" - One of the trademarks of Shadow Gallery is their intricate and beautiful vocal melodies. This song has that. It also has a symphonic/neo-classical feel to it as well. They really lay on the instrumental stuff here. Some of it seems to be a bit pointless but, overall, it is quite good. As is the song -- quite good. This song seems to be a predecessor of sorts to "Don't Ever Cry, Just Remember" from Carved in Stone and "Hope for Us?" from Tyranny. This goes down as one of my favorite Shadow Gallery songs.
2. "Darktown" - Another long intro. Shadow Gallery loves these. The intro reminds me quite a bit of "Ghostship" from Carved in Stone. Carl Cadden-James, SG's bass guitarist, provides us with an awesome flute "solo" during the intro. It's very good. The vocal melodies are on the straightforward side. This provides me with a slight problem. I expect more intricate vocal melodies from Shadow Gallery. So, even though this song is good, I'm a bit letdown by the vocal melody. Again, this song is too much on the technical side.
3. "Mystified" - Another long instrumental opening. Again, very symphonic in texture. The vocal melodies here are good but not as intricate and beautifully woven as I'm used to with this band. They will progress.
4. "Questions at Hand" - This song is a fast-paced one with a cool recurring chugga-chugga faster-than-light guitar. But, again, Shadow Gallery is too technical here and the vocal melodies are inconsistent -- they go back and forth from weak to good to weak again. But Shadow Gallery will learn that good songwriting is better than technical overindulgence on their next two albums.
5. "The Final Hour" - This one starts off with a cool vocal melody. Not as great as some of their more recent work but it's a sign of things to come -- good things. Again, there is too much senseless technical work here.
6. "Say Goodbye to the Morning" - A overly-technical intro gives way to a beautiful vocal melody. This is another song that is somewhat of a predecessor to "Don't Ever Cry, Just Remember" and "Hope for Us?". Unfortunately, this song is again plagued by too much senseless technical self-indulgence.
7. "The Queen of the City of Ice" - This song lasts over 17 minutes! Narration helps tell us the story of this song. This tune starts off good enough. It's quite laid back and easygoing. The first vocal melody is quite pretty. The down side of this song is that it lasts too long! And we are "treated" to more senseless technical masturbation. Gee, just what we needed.