Unseen

And it starts with three wonderful songs : 1) Truth : reminding me the best moment of The Ides Of March (Messiah album). 2) Rainwalker : a kind of heavy/thrash/prog song, the kind of song only Steel Prophet know how to write. 3) One Way Out : THE best song of the record which sees another side of Steel Prophet, the doom side. What a fist in my face : heavy, doomish, melodic and the guitar solo that hunts me forever. A masterpiece. Actually the whole record reminds me Black Sabbath. This time the Iron Maiden touch has been diluted and is less "expensive" compare to their previous work (Book Of The Dead). Unfortunately for the listener (and for me) things turn quiet badly from here. The magical song-writing of the American band vanishes suddenly away and expect the seventh track (Mirror, Mirror, Life After Life) and the ninth track (Blackest Of Hearts) the rest is ... less accomplished. What happen ? God knows ... I am also a bit astonished by the production : if I compare it to Messiah or Book Of The Dead, something has changed. The sound seems trapped, especially the drums. The overall could have been much powerful and the sound is far from the crystal clear production heard on Messiah. Of course, this is the type of details that might not be important when the songs are topnotch, but here I am obliged to recognize - as an ultimate Steel Prophet's fan - that there are too many fillers in this one. I am thinking particularly of these two ballads and the instrumental track which are somehow "lowering" the overall quality of the record. Where the hell is the aggression of Messiah, where the hell is the magical songs of Book Of The Dead. Don't misunderstand me, this album remains a good release, but I know Steel Prophet can do a hundred times better ... a thousand times better ... actually, a million times better. I could bet a fortune something is going wrong between the label (Nuclear Blast) and the band. Take your breath guys, release a live album and come back to us with a snarling hunger - the same one that was leaving inside you before Messiah - because your fans (the real one) will hardly accept another Unseen.