A New Life 
The Alliance
Some Day, One Day
Unkept Promises
The Fallen Angel
Peace Of Mind
Frontiers
Signs Of Time

Close To You
A Man I'll Never Be

DGM: "Different Shapes"      dgm            

preview-review  by Marco "Norman Knight" Signore____              

An album from which many 

Italian bands should learn

One of the best Italian prog metal bands returns to the scenes with this new album, “Different Shapes”. The sound remains excellent as usual, and the success the band is still experimenting is completely deserved.

Changes in the lineup are to be marked, however: Simone Mularoni (guitars) and Emanuele Casali (keyboards) are the new names in the band, and keep up the good work of their forerunners.

Since the beginning, “New World”, the first track of the album, marks a good ensemble of sounds with clean voice (almost bordering the falsetto in some parts of the chorus) supported by an unobtrusive sequence of bass and drums, a nice example of how much you can obtain without becoming too noious or trivial with the rhythm section in a metal band, and nice guitars both in arpeggio and riffs. It may be because of my personal music taste, but here Mularoni pays some small homage to Michael Romeo, and even the soloes are reminiscent of the Symphony X style (especially the key solo).

However, the beginning is quite promising and so we move to the second track, “The Alliance”, with melodic vocal lines but an aggressive, powerful guitar/rhythm beneath, which shows the great degree of musical knowledge of the Italian band. The keyboards play in a portamento arpeggio and introduce a good melodic guitar solo while bass and drums play a game of hide and chase in the background (maybe a bit too much towards the end of the second guitar solo). The voices respond to each other in a sort of “angra-style” line, but here and there the voice of Titta Tani has some indecision.

“Some day, one day” follows on our music player, and again we can listen to beautiful pieces of progressive metal without the unnecessary (and many time tedious) complexity. This song shows that you can have prog metal without being too intricate! But again it seems somehow that Tani's voice is too pushed up. Great song, however... I can only figure out how it may be in a live show.

A piano arpeggio greets us in “Unkept Promises”, the following song... but it is just few seconds away from heavy, crushing guitars, and quite soon the song explodes – without becoming too aggressive – and here the drum work is quite exceptional. I wish that some drummers out there would listen to this and learn how to play their instruments as part of the ensemble and not machine guns... my compliments to Fabio Costantino (and of course to the excellent Andrea Arcangeli on bass).

“The fallen angel” is once again introduced by piano, which almost sounds like a mellow carillion, and sets the scene to a melodic song in which Tani's voice is really at its best. We listen to a typical metal ballad, cadenced and slow. Frankly this is the only “anonymous” song of the album. Too bad.

But as to mute my perplexity the next track, “Piece of Mind” bursts into live action, with a scratching voice (almost an attempted growl, one would say) and drum tempo that steps towards death metal, only to be brought back by sudden tempo changes and vocal line that recalls Angra's “Temple of Hate” (from their “Temple of Shadows” album). Very good song, another one that may become a live hit. And this song almost doubles as a sample of the tecnhical abilities of the band members, especially the rhythm section.

“Frontiers” is the track number 7, opened by synth strings almost like an intro from a movie soundtrack, and soon supported by a guitar arpeggio that melts into a rapid-fire guitar solo! DGM really know how to impress! Another change of tempo to allow the voice, again beautiful, to spin its web of narrative. Good choice indeed in what I elect to be one of the best tracks in this good album.

And the next one, “Signs of time”, is as good as the previous song, an yet another one I'd like to hear in a live show! Melodic keyboard inserts play with a scratching rhythm construction that is quite good to listen to. Another great track indeed.

We are getting close to the end of this CD and DGM once again can appeal to our ears with “Close to you”. Another song that may be reminiscent of Angra, if you like the Brazilian power band, but with quite much personality from DGM. Surely a demonstration that the old saying “dulcis in fundo” is right. Maybe this is the best song in the album. Listen to it many times and feel it flow into your ears and stay in your mind indeed with its chorus and and its guitar riffs. And almost keeping the line of this song we find the last one, “A man I'll never be”, which is the perfect closing track for this very good work from Italy. The second best song of the album indeed (sometimes I wonder why some artists will leave the best songs for the final places in the album!!!).

All in all this album is quite good. Mixing and recording are pretty much perfect, the balance of the instruments is very good, and once again testifies the preparation and skills of DGM, a band which is too underestimated in Italy (again showing that more oftne than not my fellow countrymen should learn to listen to true music).

My compliments to DGM indeed! If I had to find a flaw in this album... well, sometimes Titta Tani tries to sing above his possibilities, but otherwise this is a great piece of music from Italy, an album from which many Italian bands should learn. I strongly suggest this album to all prog lovers out there!

Rating: 8,5/10

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