This achievement from Shadow Gallery is what soon will become a classic on the progressive scene. The fact the the album is a masterpiece goes without saying, but it's also only the second release from the band. So, what I'm saying is that this is a young constellation of musicians that even if they've already done a superb album like Carved in Stone, the future will show us more...

Take a look at the songlist. Something missing? Like track 2, 4, 6. And what ever happened to track 10. This is a very fascinating thing. Those tracks that are gone are the so called segues, created by Gary Wehrkamp. Their purpose is to link the songs together, so that the listener will get a more harmonic feel when listening. When a song ends, there's this segue to melt it together with the intro to the next song. Real comfortable for the ear. The are actually 20 tracks on the album, counting it to 5 segues. Then there's the last song "Ghostship" that has a playtime of 22 minutes, divided into 7 parts, or tracks. The last track is a strange thing from Gary, a guy standing there knocking on door for about 2 minutes. When the door finally opens, there is another song. As I said, very fascinating.

I would also like to say that Mike Baker is problably one of the best progressive singer there is. He has a very deep, passionate and tender voice. Even if the vocal melodies are done by Carl Cadden-James, I don't think they would have been that good if there was another singer, even if Carl should have a lot of credit for them. It's not only the voice of Mike, but the whole album is filled by these choirs. Very soft and sometimes so anonymous that you hardly notice them. Very beautiful.

There's not one bad song on the album, but my main favourites are track 1, 3 ,5, 7 and 11. The only negative thing about the album is the production. It's not a catastrophy, but a better one would really bring out the emotion a lot more. As a final statement, Carved in Stone is a very good progressive creation...