Band:	Dante
Album:	The Inner Circle
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2008
A review by:	Jeff

01. Faded
02. Ghost From The Past
03. For I Am
04. Not Like Myself
05. More Or Less A Man
06. The Giving & The Taking
07. Part I: The Giving
08. Part II: The Taking

Despite its name, Dante is not a band of extreme Metal! This band from Germany plays a cool complex Progressive Metal and their first album, "The Inner Circle" is a nice way to begin their musical road! If you like to listen to complex Progressive Metal I really recommend you this album, this is maybe not perfect but for a beginning, it's really well done so don't wait anymore!

"The Inner Circle" is a pure album of complex Progressive Metal. The songs are all really long (8 minutes in general) with a ton of break, different passages and of course guitars and keyboards soli. Actually Dante is a bit in the same category than bands like Dream Theater or even the Flower Kings and we're more into musical demonstration than anything else. It doesn't mean that its bad and I really like the Jazzy side that we can find on some songs like "Ghost From The Past". Though it's a first album and some things are missing. As an example it's complex and everything but sometime the songs are not so catchy and you can be a bit lost in the end. It's the main problem of such bands, they have great musical abilities and they're able to write great songs but if you're not into pure complex Prog, it can be a bit hard for you to enter in their music. Dante has this problem too and with such long and complex songs sometime the album can be a bit too long if you see what I mean. But remember that it's just a first release so it should be better in the future!

Alexander Göhs is an excellent singer and his band mates are good too! "The Inner Circle" is a nice album of Prog Metal but its production sometime is a bit weak and the sound can be a bit too loud. One more time is just a problem in relation with the age of the band, and honestly with such a debut already I can tell you that we can expect a lot of good things for this German combo.

"The Inner Circle" is a really good debut album. Maybe that the album lacks a bit of energy sometime but all in all if you're into Prog Metal this is recommended for your ears! Let's keep an eye on this combo who know maybe that they will do something big in a near future, they can do it really!