Time Requiem – Optical Illusion / 2006 Candlelight / 9 Tracks / http://www.anderssonmusic.com / http://www.candlelightrecordsusa.com / Reviewed 11 October 2006

None of the tracks on this album will beak any speed records. Time Requiem play a brand of progressive metal that most closely parallel classic Judas Priest, albeit with a slightly strong set of guitars fueling each of the tracks on “Optical Illusion. ”Each of the tracks is much more intricate than anything Judas Priest would come out with, to the fact that the focus of some of these tracks gets lost with the guitars and the time signatures of the band trying to outdo one another. Something that is noticed as early as “Sintosin” is that Time Requiem continues to work on the same sections of a track over and over again. I feel like I’ve heard the same segment of “Sintosin” five or six times by the time that this seven plus minute track is over. I can understand repeating yourself to keep things more coherent, but not to the degree that Time Requiem does in some of the tracks on “Optical Illusion”.

Beyond the fact that a number of the sections of Time Reqiuem’s album are similar in-track, the songs on “Opitcal Illusion” are similar in-disc. The cohesion that Time Requiem creates on this disc is high enough that it seems to stifle different approaches that the band could conceivably take if they so choose. The one strong thing about “Optical Illusion” is that tracks lead into each other; there is not the sense of episodic, once a track stops a new one starts over from scratch sound that tons of bands end up falling into with their album. The disc may be fifty minutes almost on the dot but there is perhaps only tirty-five minutes of different stuff on “Optical Illusion”.

For example, I’m still unsure how a track like the title one is qualitatively different than “Sintosin”. Don’t get me wrong, all the arrangements that are present on this disc are head and shoulders above what practically anyone else with a guitar can commit to disc. It’s just that there is so much culturing of a specific song with this album that there is little in trhe way of innovation that one can hear. The one suggestion that I would have for Time Requiem is to try and step back from the album recording process once in a while, so that another type of style can come out at times. With that, Time Requime would be a more impressive band.

Top Tracks: Ocean Wings, Miracle Man

Rating: 4.9/10

[JMcQ]