Band:	Darkology
Album:	Altered Reflections
Style:	US power metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	November 16, 2009
A review by:	Doc G.

01. Microcozm
02. Violent Vertigo
03. I Bleed
04. Dark Energy
05. Nobot
06. Eyes Of Argus
07. Aura Of Xhad
08. Alone
09. Revitalize
10. Trance Of The Gorgons

Derivation and showing your influences is a tricky thing, a fine line to walk I guess you could say. Either you have to throw some new aspect in that could come across quite gimmicky, or don't, and run the risk of sounding like a complete knock-off. Darkology play a sort of thrashy Judas Priest, offset by a few progressive elements, a la Nevermore.

So what does all this have to do with the idea of bringing in new elements? Well, the skeleton of Darkology's music is a pretty straight-forward form of metal we've all seen before, but the progressive element in the music really plays as a wild card - occasionally it's a downfall of the album, and other times it really makes this album what it is.

The good side is the more tranquil, softer sections drenched in beautiful guitar melodies. When listening to aggressive, hard-edged heavy metal, having some more peaceful interludes does a great job at giving the heavier sections a little more power through contrast. The bad side? Everyone is familiar with the strange time signatures thrown into a lot of metal these days - the stops and switches that bring the entire song to a brief halt before changing direction; those are the down side. Once again, it's also in contrast with the more straight-forward base of the music that makes this a bad thing; one minute you'll be rocking out, head banging and shredding on your air-guitar, when all of a sudden one of these switches will pop out of nowhere, throwing off the groove.

Overall this is a great little album, and will probably be more appreciated by those who enjoy dashes of prog in their metal. On the other hand, Altered Reflections has enough aggression and great hooks for the more straight-forward metalheads among us.