Is there life after 'Misplaced'? DGM's last album sounded like all the members weren't pulling in the same direction, and there have been 2 line-up changes since that album. Lead guitarist Diego Reali has been replaced with the amazing new guitar-hero Simone Mularoni, clearly a move in the right direction. The change in the keyboard department isn't as significant with new guy Emanuele Casali doing a good job replacing Fabio Sanges.

DGM is still fast and furious progressive power metal with some nice orchestration, DGM has never been about lots of fine small details and 10 minutes instrumental parts and they stick to that formula on this album as well. The addition of Simone Mularoni on lead guitar alone makes this album their best and most mature to date, but to compare them to genre titans like Symphony X is stretching it a lot...

'Different Shapes' is a solid piece of powerful and speedy progressive metal, which should appeal to fans of Italian metal as well as power metal heads... my personal highlights include the fine semi-ballad: "The Fallen Angel" and the most aggressive song DGM has ever recorded: "Piece of Mind" - not half bad...