Twice Second in Bloomington, MN

The fourth album by
Symphorce
, 2004's
Twice Second
, is the culmination of ideas first explored in the German quintet's previous releases. Unlike the majority of their countrymen working in this style,
have little interest in Scandinavian style
death metal
; instead, their clear antecedents are
Queensryche
's progressive tendencies and
Iron Maiden
's skill at adding the occasional
pop
hook into their music without ever coming even close to
Def Leppard
-style cheese. These 11 tunes are relatively concise and free of
prog rock
noodling, but nearly all of them have the suite-like, multi-part structures and whiplash tempo and time signature changes that are the hallmark of
progressive metal
. While singer
Andy B. Franck
occasionally has a tendency to lapse into bombastic bellowing, as on the pummeling
"Whatever Hate Provides,"
he's normally an impressively restrained and natural singer, a rarity in this form of
metal
. A solid and varied album with much to please even old-school
fans put off by the punky roar of the
merchants,
portends even better things to come. ~ Stewart Mason