Symphony X - Twilight In Olympus review
| Band: | Symphony X |
| Album: | Twilight In Olympus |
| Style: | Symphonic power metal, Progressive metal |
| Release date: | 1998 |
| A review by: | Dream Taster |
01. Smoke And Mirrors
02. Church Of The Machine
03. Sonata
04. In The Dragon's Den
05. Through The Looking Glass
06. The Relic
07. Orion - The Hunter
08. Lady Of The Snow
After the release of the excellent "The Divine Wings Of Tragedy", the new Symphony X opus "Twilight In Olympus" had high standards to fulfill. But once again, the band from New Jersey did a good job with keeping their own particular progressive heavy style. Loud guitar riffs, clean melodies and breathtaking while powerful vocals. Michael Romeo is still playing like a god and most of the songs are memorable.
'Smoke and Mirrors' has become one of the fans' favorite songs. 'Church of the Machine' is very progressive and powerful. 'In the Dragon's Den' starts with a guitar onslaught that keeps on giving. 'Through the Looking Glass' is a long and epic song based on the novel by Lewis Carrol. But the rest of the album is not really mesmerizing, even if it is rather good. And as 'Sonata' is a short classical intro for 'In the Dragon's Den', well, the album is reduced to 4 interesting tracks.
Their usual drummer Jason Rullo did not play the drums as he had temporary left the band so Tom Walling is filling in behind the drunkit.
In a nutshell, it's a good album but I prefer "The Divine Wings Of Tragedy" or "V: The New Mythology Suite". So "Twilight In Olympus" is worth listening to, especially for the first track 'Smoke and Mirrors', but it's not as good as the standards of the band.
Rating breakdown
| Performance: | 8 |
| Songwriting: | 9 |
| Originality: | 8 |
| Production: | 7 |
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Written on 22.09.2003 by
Bringing you reviews of quality music and interesting questions such as: "A picture is worth a thousand words. How many words is a song worth?" I have only got so much patience and skills, you do the math. |
Comments
Comments: 15
Visited by: 130 users
| Bitch Boy Posts: 1353  |
I think the same as you, this album is good, but it isn't as good as most of the band's albums. The rating is low though.
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| BlankFile Posts: 705 |
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| Talvi Posts: 825  |
Ok, not on par with V or Divine wings, but much better than the Odyssey and Paradise Lost IMO.
---- My account on other musical pages: http://www.last.fm/user/Pozito/ http://rateyourmusic.com/~Talvi
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| Raziel X Posts: 117  |
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| MetalMac Posts: 23  |
i would give this album an 8.5 if the production was better. nevertheless sweet album i listen to it all the time. -MetalMac
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| MetalMac Posts: 23 |
Written by Talvi on 16.11.2007 at 16:48 what are you nuts? this album doesn't come close to how amazing the albums The Odyssey and Paradise Lost are... good album but not that good. -MetalMac
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| Talvi Posts: 825 |
Written by MetalMac on 16.01.2008 at 04:49 Are YOU nuts? The Odyssey and Paradise Lost represent a significant change in Symphony X sound. They began to play more catchy power metal instead of their signature sound of neoclassic prog. This is due to them playing live, since they didn't before. So they change their sound to what most people like, or simpler, to a catchier sound. That may or may not be bad, but in my opinion, we already have a lot of power metal bands that are MUCH better than Symphony X Odyssey/Paradise Lost, but their older sound is something quite unique, and I'd love to hear it again from a new album of theirs. I Hope I've expressed my opinion of that comment correctly now.
---- My account on other musical pages: http://www.last.fm/user/Pozito/ http://rateyourmusic.com/~Talvi
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| Deadsoulman Elite Posts: 8004  |
This is my least favourite SX album (I don't count the debut). A good album nonetheless, but my main concern with it is that it sounds too neo-classical and less power metal while TDWOT managed to sound like both equally at the same time. The songwriting is also slightly less brilliant than on the other albums IMO.
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| x-avier Posts: 46  |
This album is amazing one of my favorites.. I just can't stand people only like songs that are commercial or that only they play so many times live. The interludes in all songs are just out of their minds, I love Thomas miller as their bass player, not as talented as lepond but had more felling and better bass interludes. If they had released Twilight in Olympus the epic song that will later become Rediscovery - The New Mythology would be my second favorite album.
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| BloodTears ANA-thema Elite Posts: 11835  |
Overall, this review is very accurate. "In the dragon's den" is my favourite track and I quite like "through the looking glass" as well. I do think they were uninspired on this one and just put out the best songs they could write. I don't know if they felt pressured to live up to their ancestor "The Divine Wings of Tragedy". It's not a brilliant album indeed but it still has good moments. But I don't think it will be featured in most people's SX favourites album list. It certainly isn't in my list 
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| Wes Posts: 424  |
This album is one of my favorites as well. The solo in the Relic is better than the entire Paradise Lost album and more.
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| qlacs "The Quaker" Posts: 1547  |
I agree with the commenters standing by the album. I am close to preferring it to its successor; this is one more dense with original composition.
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| BlankFile Posts: 705 |
Written by BlankFile on 15.07.2007 at 00:30 11 years ago... Actually I really like "Lady of the Snow" aswell.  Classic SX álbum, a real gem.
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