Music Street Journal - Music News & Reviews

Metal/Prog Metal CD Reviews

Shadow Gallery Tyranny Review by Gary Hill This progressive metal CD, the third from the band, is a concept album that tells a tale which could certainly make a fine film. The music here is well written and performed. This is a very strong effort. Shadow Gallery (Brendt Allman, Mike Baker, Carl Cadden, Chris Ingles, Joe Nevolo and Gary Wehrkamp) are joined on this release by James LaBrie (Dream Theater) and D. C. Cooper (Royal Hunt), among others. Tyranny can be purchased in stores, from CDNow or directly fromMagna Carta at 208 E. 51st Street, #1820, New York, NY, 10022. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: The Early Years Volume 3 at garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-The-Early-Years .

Track by Track Review

Act I

Stiletto in The Sand This is a frantic, classically-tinged, prog-metal instrumental.

War For Sale This driving prog metal cut is strong.

Out of Nowhere This Rycheish mid-tempo prog metal composition is very entertaining. It contains a somewhat classically tinged instrumental break.

Mystery Mystery is a very catchy and infectious prog metal cut. The piece contains a Dream Theaterish instrumental break, complete with a crunchy guitar solo.

Hope For Us? A quite pretty piano intro leads to a dramatic acoustic guitar-based, again quite Dream Theaterish. This is a wonderfully beautiful song.

Victims A lovely intro leads into a strongly energetic prog metal song structure.

Broken A beautiful piano and vocal based ballad, the delicate textures of this song contrast quite nicely with the metallic energy of the last cut.

Act II

I Believe A strong, regal-sounding intro drops back to piano for a time. This piano segment leads into a metallic song structure. The piece has a very intriguing arrangement.

Roads of Thunder This moody track is reminiscent of the prog metal stylings of Queensryche.

Spoken Words Spoken Words is a very lovely piano-and-vocal-based song, which is a dialogue between a man and a woman.

New World Order This competent prog metal number is full of neo classical leanings.

Chased Showing elements of both Dream Theater and Rush, Chased is a powerful prog metal instrumental, with the emphasis on prog.

Ghost of A Chance This is a pretty and poignant metallic ballad.

Christmas Day Although it does contain some metallic segments, this cut is a beautifully dramatic ballad that features flute.

More CD Reviews

Metal/Prog Metal

Non-Prog

Progressive Rock

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
© 2025 Music Street Journal Site design and programming by Studio Fyra, Inc./Beetcafe.com