Aliger Daemon (EP)

Following the review of Time Machine, this incredible Prog Power Metal band we've discovered at the end of 2001, I felt like reviewing their EP, which is an excellent item for fans of the band to collect and contains a few interesting tracks. This Aliger Daemon is made of 5 songs, 2 from the Evil album, Eyes Of Fire and Army Of The Dead (both in a slightly different mix, called the "daemon mix") and 3 other tracks from their previous albums, Desert Of Souls entirely remastered, Will You Remember in it's "hidden secrets version" (from the Hidden Secrets double CD) and finally Silent Revolution in it's original version. Both songs from Evil are an excellent choice, but it couldn't had been differently since all tracks from the album are killers. The other songs allowed me to discover another facets from the band in their previous work. Immediately we notice a change in the production, it's still quite good, but it sound more raw, less orchestrated than the songs in Evil. It might also be more progressive as well. While Desert Of Souls is a cool song, it doesn't retain the magic of the 2 first tracks, but Will You Remember is here to correct that with its very catchy melodies. The last song of this EP is quite nice, although the vocals are very different, so different that I'm not sure that it features the same singer... actually it reminds me Domine's singer VERY much (maybe as a guest on a old album ?). So vocally it's inferior from the other songs, and the chorus is a bit easy and the jazzy pause is quite strange. The song is very progressive and although the song writing is very interesting and will please the deep prog fans, it may be too much to my tastes. A very interesting EP for the fans or for people who'd like to discover the band without buying their album blindly (although you can buy Evil without hesitation). It shows another facets of the band and it allows you to see the progression of Time Machine. Although inferior in pure quality than Evil, this Aliger Daemon is a fairly good EP.