ETERNITY X

"The Edge"
 (1997)

 Track List:
The Edge... (Introduction)
Fly Away
The Confession
The Edge Part 2... (The Looking Glass)
A Day in Verse
Imaginarium
The Edge Part 3... (Existence Chapter 1,000,009)
The Edge of Madness
Rejection
Baptized by Fire
The Edge... Legacy/Reprise

Line Up:
Keith Sudano (vocals), Jeff Shernov (guitars),
Jamie Mazur (keys), Zeek (bass), Jimmy Peruta (drums)

First work that I listen of this band and go although deserved it had the good ones critical that enjoyed. 
"The Edge" is a conceptual album that it investigates those border territories that it characterizes to the human life, those states you limit where it is not known well that side falls and the things can be opposed so alone with hardly changing a shade of its appreciation. 
That gallery of ambivalent characters that we all have and we know, the thin filaments that so alone they sometimes separate the religion and the spirituality of the material meanness, the hypocrisy of the morals, the madness of the good sense, the dreams of the realities. 
And of so much of speaking of you limit them and the borders, this album makes honor to the concept because at level of style it settles to provoke us you sew very among you limit them. There where the progressive thing unites to the pop thing as for the hook and the playful melody, there when that hook transforms and it enriches to transcend toward the magnificence and the accidental of the progressive thing. There where the outbursts of the distortion of the guitars bring near us to the devastating power of the metal and the rhythmic cadences of the hard rock, to make us fall suddenly in the symphonic confines of the keyboard arrangements and the arabesque balad of the piano (Styx??). for that reason it is very well position the title. But what distinguishes this album is their voice, a Keith Sudano that equally strolls for the borders falling with all the comfort and the ease toward the expressions that the compositions need. It is really able to transmit a very direct and moving emotion, although in some first one heard it seemed obvious, it ended up soaking very deep. 

The unit in the diversity that characterizes this work makes us to listen to it in its entirety to understand it. Any track that we listen isolated he/she won't give us an idea of the globalidad, not because the topics are so different but because several facets that some are supplemented others travel. 
The opening with "The edge part I" possesses the whole orchestral pomp and the moving vibration is not allowed to wait to the compass of the powerful riffs. "Don't fly away" inaugurates the balad with some charming refrains - certain reminiscence is appreciated Air Supply -, and it has its partner that equals it in beauty with the sweet one "A day in verse" to the compass of the playful piano riffs. 
"The confession" proposes a concentration in the symphonic thing, it opens up with pieces of "Carmina Burana" and a Sudano that it passes of rumor to moving. "The edge part II", the looking glass" is a small amalgam of styles and discoveries: keyboards drawing melodies to the best symphonic style, an acceleration that takes us for moments toward kind of a soft power metal and a dose of madness through a glorious refrain with the gnarled and sharp voices. "Immaginarium" in its 10 minutes is a species of progressive suite that travels places of acoustic dream and edges of furious and dark hardness. The voice of Sudano here explores very diverse shades. "The edge part III" gives us a potent symphonic and expressive lust very Marillionoid with the vocalizations very up. "The edge of madness" of course makes honor to its title and it strolls among the sentences of Sudano accompanied by the piano - they remember to the slow passages of Floyd and Marillion - among metallic rhythmic arrests where strange voices appear in the choirs like the echoes of the madness saying present. "Rejection" is mainly a brief demurrage in more typical territories of the prog metal for a work of the bases of bass and cutter drums. 
"Baptized of fire" recaptures the most catching airs combining ballad steps with the emotivity of the piano and the vocal melody, but finishing off in a half time more metallic march. Finally "The edge part IV" is the prospective culmination: among an interwoven of melodies of acoustic guitars it demolishes us the brutal intonation of Sudano singing the last verses almost with in a scream of deep emotion until an abrupt cut returns us like in a dream to the main verse of the opening to remember in that place the trip that will be has begun where we will abandon him, in my case thanked by so stupendous voyage. 
As they will see I have not highlighted shines neither execution virtuosities since the remarkable of this work it is the composition and the setting from the execution to the service of the group, what stops my it is so much a virtue or more prominent than a great alone. A true marvel for where it looks him at it, with ingredients to satisfy to several palates calls you progressive, symphonic, melodic metal, or simply for those that give a special credit to the proposals where the music is hugged indissoluble to transmit us a plagued universe of concepts, of overflowing teatrality and of touching interpretive delivery. 

Julio Zoppi