A; In terms of the Glam Metal style, this is as good as it gets. And it gets damn good.

Here we have a hidden masterpiece of glam metal (if such a genre could ever be described with such legit terms). It pretty much follows the eighties glam-metal style, with the song structure and solos, but with some great twists and turns that make the music far more interesting than you'd expect from the less than artistic style. How many glam bands have this many modulations in one album? Virtually none. The album has some of the best melodies, riffs, layering of parts, and the epic arena sized sound and anthem-atic choruses that makes glam-metal likable to its fans. Whatever it is that makes more commercial music like this amazing, this album has it all. It's really the only eighties glam metal album I think I could ever give a full five stars, and I've heard more than my far share. Nightmare, the closing piece, is without a doubt in the top ten tracks to ever be released in the nineties, and it's a real shame that it's as undervalued and under-appreciated as it is.

Seriously, check it album out, especially if you dig the eighties metal style. This is a classically trained musician writing this review, and my scrutinous ears find little to complain.

Way back over thirty years ago, Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple guitarist fame united with Dio's band Elf (at first, as a side project; for this album he would replace the rest of the musicians accept for Dio) to form a new group Rainbow that would revolutionize the world of metal, especially Rainbow's sophomore effort, Rising. This album in many ways has achieved historical merit regarding it's influence on the direction hard rock and metal would take in the future, and that influence reverberates throughout the metal community today, especially with power metal and prog metal acts. So exactly what about it made it so influential?

Well, nothing like it had really been done before. And it still sounds remarkably unique and well aged all the way to the incoming another decade of the millennium. Blackmore's guitar work is some of the best (if not the best) he had and has ever recorded, at least in the sense of how he'd progressed out of the blues style into what would help define hard rock/heavy metal guitar playing, with heavy hitting riffs, sweeping (guitar pun not intended) solos, and even hints at what would be the basis for power metal guitar playing (especially in A Light in the Black). The synth work is a big thing that separates this from your standard rock album as well. There is also an overall slight complexity to the composition, though not that it's nearly enough to considered progressive. Dio's vocals fit the music remarkably well, adding the the wholesome and almost mystic feel the album has. The drumming is interesting enough, and I think it could have been made very cluttered had Powell had a more complicated playing style, thus rhythm patterns he plays only contribute to the solidity and heaviness of the album. All of the instruments just fit so well together, like a puzzle that just fits nearly perfectly.

What surprises me most is just how catchy all the tracks are without loosing hardly any musical integrity whatsoever. This is definitely an album that wasn't created just to make money, these guys are writing exactly the music they want without compromise, and it well paid off as that mentality created an album that has endured the test of time. Unfortunately I can't say the same for pretty much any of the group's following albums. Had they kept on the role they were on with this album, they could have easily been my favorite band, as this is definitely one of my favorite hard rock (or on this site, traditional metal) albums. Head banging hard rock, to the level of awesomeness as Uriah Heep, some Rush, and obviously Deep Purple.

As far as the actual tracks go, it's pretty hard to determine the best, for all are so powerful and splendid in their own ways, but I think Stargazer takes the cake. It seems as though in the main chorus, at the part of the lyrics "I see a Rainbow Rising," a magical aura falls around the band, a feeling caused by the introduction of the moving string lines that add to the already magical feeling the song presents, especially with the male choruses (I'm pretty sure they're keyboard settings...). It is seriously and literally epic. "I'm goin' home, Oooooh!!!" Everyone who listens to rock, especially metal should hear this epic track at some point in their lives. My least favorite tracks are actually the first and last, though for relatively minor reasons, as they're both still amazing.

Essential for any self-respecting metal head out there. If you like ANY hard rock or early metal AT ALL, especially bands like Deep Purple, Scorpions, Savatage, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, etc., this is an album you MUST buy, period. Oh, and the remastered version (or at least the one I bought) tweaked some things and added effects where they weren't really appropriate, especially with the cymbal crashes; just a fair warning to any of you that actually decide to buy the CD version of this remarkable piece of work.

Another worthy album for fans of the death metal/fusion combination.

This is indeed an interesting and sort of strange album that I had to check out, the fan of unknown "gems" that I am, as many people view this work. It is a mixed bag of death metal and jazz-fusion, in the same vein as Atheist, Cynic, and Watchtower, though the production and composition are a bit less developed than any of those bands. The jazz-fusion refers to musical timbres far more than actual composition, of which there is pretty much no jazz in terms of the improvisational style. What's more, it's more "post jazz" sounding fusion, when many jazz-fusion artists (mostly in the eighties) broke off from the traditional jazz composition and favored an incredibly more electric-based sound, especially Trio of Doom and Chick Corea Electric Band. Basically, you're going to here a lot more influences from Death than you are from Miles Davis, for certain.

At first I was incredibly turned off from this album by the opening track, which featured the not-so-well-produced metal guitar riff that repeated over and over and some less-than-appealing sounding gutteral vocals. But this album grew on me a bit, as most prog does with subsequent; as you get further through the album the fusion element increases, and I would say, so does the level of composition (and not from any bias; I tend to like progressive death metal as much as I like a lot of jazz-fusion). Personal Energy is probably my favorite track, as it seems the most innovative and unique, rivaling even some of Atheist's and Cynic's best tracks. And we're definitely talking about prog-metal here, these guys do some insanely complicated things with rhythms and harmonies. I don't like the keyboard imitation of acoustic instruments, but a band's budget it a band's budget.

In general, this is probably a great album for fans of the already mentioned bands. Objectively, this is a solid album worth buying with great musicianship and deceptively complex composition. If the death metal/fusion combo is your thing (as it is mine) this is a more than worthy album for your collection. There are a lot of really good riffs and interesting bridges of compositional style between death metal and electric fusion, with great musicianship. Some of the chord progressions get really dissonant too, in an impressive way. The second half of the album is probably best. While I do like the album, I find it more "interesting" than good, which is a purely subjective thing. What's more, there's nothing here that Atheist and Cynic don't have superior mastery, even during the earlier years of this album's creation.

A great revival for Cynic.

It's easy to be suspicious of bands that get back together after a long period of being disbanded, for the output is almost always dreadful. But with Traced in Air we do in fact have a quality release from a band that has been disbanded for around decade and a half, then out of the blue reunites, produces an album, and even goes on tour for it. I wouldn't be all too surprised if this album has become so popular just because it far surpassed most peoples' expectations.

For anyone who doesn't already know, Cynic is a band that blends speedy death metal with fusion, the heavier parts being the former and the softer parts having qualities of the latter. They use many effects in their music in many ways, especially with the vocals and guitars. Their debut album Focus is considered by many death metal fans, especially on the artistic side, to be a staple of the genre , up to par with later Death and Atheist. The musicians certainly hold nothing back in showing off their musicianship, and not for the sake of itself, but for the sake of creating great music, which itself makes me have great respect for this band overall.

To be far, this album is a lot less heavy than their debut. There is much more emphasis on the "progressive" quality of their sound and less on the "death" aspect of their debut. This of course does not automatically make it a superior work obviously, and even though I'm very much a prog-metal listener I prefer the debut simply because it flat out isn't quite as good, in that the melodies and riffs are generally weaker for whatever reason.

Objectively, however, this is a highly polished album, very few if any awkward spots, and well thought out writing and production overall. The best track is by far the second one, The Space for This, which in my mind is an instant classic of prog-metal. The other tracks, however, were not nearly as thrilling for me, though each had some very good sections. Had they all been as great as that second track, this album would be a hands down masterpiece. And after listening to this album many times times, I don't thing they'll grow on me much more, or at least anytime soon.

To further compare this to the bands debut, here we have more use of clean vocals; the guttural vocals almost serve as more of a backing vocal line, rarely having any featured time. This aspect I prefer over that of Focus' somewhat below par sounding guttural vocals. What makes me slightly prefer their debut overall is how the music here has less textural variation than Focus, or at least from track to track. They overall sound all too similar to me, and I don't personally find the material as interesting overall, though I do appreciate everything that's done with the writing in logical terms.

I can see why many people are excited about this release considering the circumstances with the band and the progression in their sound. I find it an entertaining album but nothing to highly recommend or listen to often enough to learn every note. If you're interested in what's happening right now with prog-metal scene, or if you loved Cynic's debut and want to hear where the band has headed with their music after quite some time, this is a quality album for you to check out. It'll be very interesting to hear what their next album will sound like.

A staple in the history of the jazz-fusion death metal scene.

An excellent addition to any metal collection indeed! The album Focus is the debut of the well-known band from the jazz-fusion/death metal scene called Cynic. It was forged in the early-mid nineties, when this sort of metal was most popular in the metal scene, hence the uprising of bands like Atheist, Pestilence, and Death. There is a great variation of sound on the work: metal with styles of speed, death growls, and technicality, and progressive jazz-fusion with clean chorused-guitar, asymmetric meter, clean vocals with effects, and complex composition.

The musicianship here is staggering. There is a studio split of two guitars, and the bass is fret-less (!) and you have alternating usage of the death vocals and clean vocals, which is very charming. Many of the electric guitar riffs have the double picked riffs (where the rhythm is sixteenth notes while the melodic riff is eighths), very characteristic even in the band, including in their follow up album Traced in Air. The composition is often head spinning, usually either sounding like a fast version of Death or a sort of prog-rock sounding Chick Corea, and everything in between. This is an album that definitely takes multiple listens to understand very well, to say the least. This music would be incredibly fun to play for the few who would be skilled enough to play it decently.

To compare to the recently released follow up Traced in Air, this album is definitely on the heavier side (the band became much more tame on their follow up), more technical and less melodic. However, the riffs and composition overall is superior and more interesting in the opinion of this reviewer. While Tranced in Air probably has a few tracks that certainly are up to par, the overall album is less consistent in quality. The only even slightly mediocre tracks on Focus are "Eagle Nature"and "I'm But a Wave To..." and the rest are superb, my favorite being Textures, a very fun and complicated heavy jazz-fusion piece.

This is an essential album for any fan of of progressive metal, and highly recommended for heavy metal fans in general.