rdtprog
From Richmond Hill, Ontario in Canada, the band was formed in 2006, and it's in 2012, that they made this self-titled album. There is only 5 tracks but one going to the 30 minutes mark. From the first song "The Old Knew", we are in the presence of a band that want to show their musicianship with some fast guitar arpeggios. The music is in the symphonic/power metal genre in the direction of Dream Theater and Symphony X. The vocals are not clean and fortunately it would improve a bit as we are going further in the album. Not only we are greeted with some powerful guitars parts, but also a big drum sound that shows some nice patterns. The keyboards have their share of space with some interesting solos, as well. The band can slow their fast pace down a bit with some acoustic parts that brings a little breather to the music. There's also a short oriental music passage from the guitar in the second song " Forever In Chains" and a drum part that evoke the song "Territories" from Rush. And this Rush's influence continue with the single "Another Day Slips By". The overall sound takes us back to the Rush "Signals" era. Here the vocals are cleaner and more melodic because the song is more mellower than the other tracks. In the next song "Primitive Design", we are back with some Progressive Metal where we can hear clearly for the first time a short bass line. There is also a extended keyboard solo from the book of Jordan Rudess. In the last epic song "The Dream", the band decided to end this album in a dramatic style with a resume of what the others songs were offering but by upgrading the level a bit with many stops and go, and a long instrumental break that slow things down with a pure Opeth style. This is a impressive debut album that show nice potential, if they could improve the quality of the vocals to match the quality of the music, that would be near perfect.