"Altered
Reflections" is a stunning debut album from Texas based Darkology, but
looking at the participants it really doesn't come as a big surprise. Long
serving members of the Texan metal scene makes up the line-up: vocalist Kelly
Sundown Carpenter with a background in Outworld and most of you might know him
from his contribution on the second Beyond Twilight album "Section X", drummer
Brian Harris (Solstice, ex-Firewind and Vainglory) and his brother, guitarist
Michael Harris (Thought Chamber, Zanister, Surgeon, Arch Rival) and bass player
Mike Neal are the pieces of Darkology.
Darkology
is a hybrid of classic heavy metal, power metal, Bay Area thrash and progressive
metal, and like so many other representatives from Texas they do no try to fit
any trend. Their Influences comes from many corners of metal: Judas Priest,
Iced Earth, Dream Theater, Nevermore and Beyond Twilight are the ones I think have had the
biggest influence on their style and sound, and as strange as this brew might
sound, I must say I am very impressed with the outcome.
Sundown is
clearly not everyone's case, but I think he is a brilliant addition to their
sound and his style works very well with the complex and atmospheric song
structures. This is hard and heavy, mixed up with some very atmospheric parts
with some reminiscence of King Diamond, acoustic parts, all out thrash parts and
peppered with some awesome lead parts and you are at no point bored - actually
it is at times rather hard to keep up with them.
"Altered
Reflections" is an incredible debut album from one of the most intriguing new
progressive metal bands, and I can strongly recommend it to open-minded metal
fans.
