SILENT MEMORIAL — Cosmic Handball (review)

SILENT MEMORIAL — Cosmic Handball album cover Album · 1999 · Progressive Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
Time Signature
Mysteries of metal...

Genre: progressive metal

"Cosmic Handball" is very inspired by Dream Theater, it seems, and it offers pretty much run-of-the-mill progressive metal with dominant keyboards, odd time signatures, jazzy and shreddy guitar soloes and other guitar acrobatics, complex song structures, unexpected tempo changes, and very melodic vocals. The music is so complex and heterogeneous that one easily loses oneself in it.

This sounds pretty typical and unoriginal, doesn't it? Maybe, but Silent Memorial are so good at doing what they do, and they're fantastic musicians, the it becomes totally irrelevant whether or not their music is original or groundbreaking.

My favorite track is "I: Carpet Driver", which is full of so many twists and turns that it reaches the level of masterpieces like "At Fates Hands" by Fates Warning and "Erotomania" and "Stream of Consciousness" by Dream Theater. In contrast, the ballad "Lovely Galaxy" is some of the worst sappy music I've ever heard; it really sounds like a failed attempt at making a Queen-like epic ballad.

But all in all, a fine progressive metal album featuring some very skilled musicians. Recommended to fans of Dream Theater and progressive metal in general.
Share this review

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
No shouts posted yet. Be the first member to do so above!

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

A Sonication Technical Death Metal
OBSCURA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Hin helga kvöl Atmospheric Sludge Metal
SÓLSTAFIR
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Cycles of Suffering Black Metal
BURIAL OATH
Buy this album from MMA partners
Facilis Descensus Averno Death Metal
SAEVUS FINIS
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us