Band:	Shadow Gallery
Album:	Room V
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2005
A review by:	Jeff

Disc I
01. Manhunt
02. Comfort Me
03. The Andromeda Strain
04. Vow
05. Birth Of A Daughter
06. Death Of A Mother
07. Lamentia
08. Seven Years
09. Dark
10. Torn
11. The Archer Of Ben Salem
12. Encrypted
13. Room V
14. Rain

Disc II [limited edition]
01. Joe's Spotlight
02. She Wants To Go Home
03. Memories [demo]
04. Rain [Acoustic version]
05. Floydian Memories [Pink Floyd medley]
    1 - Pigs On The Wing (Part I)
    2 - Fearless
    3 - Mother (The Post War Dream/Thin Ice)
    4 - Bike
    5 - Brain Damage
    6 - (Tienneman's Square/Goodbye Blue Sky)
    7 - Point Me At The Sky
    8 - Your Possible Pasts
    9 - Shining On [feat. Arjen Anthony Lucassen]
    10 - One In The Crowd
    11 - Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict (Distant Banter)
    12 - Baby Lemonade/Another Brick In The Wall Guitar Riff
    13 - Welcome To The Machine/Wish You Were Here Interspersed Vocalization
    14 - Summer Of '68 [Instrumental version]
    15 - Sheep [feat. Arjen Anthony Lucassen]
    16 - Julia Dream
    17 - Comfortably Numb [feat. Gary Wehrkamp]
    18 - Cymbaline
    19 - Corporal Clegg/The Great Gig In The Sky Interspersed Vocalization
    20 - Mother Reprise
    21 - Wot's... Uh The Deal?/Wish You Were Here Segue
    22 - The Fletcher Memorial Home (Paranoid Eyes/The Final Cut)
    23 - On The Turning Away
    24 - Pigs on the Wing (Part II)
+ The Story of Room V [CD-ROM]

I love Prog Metal, but God now why, even if I know Shadow Gallery I just discovered them with their last album "Room V." And damn what a big kick in my ass, I'm still wondering why this band is so underrated (I don't talk about critically but about renown). But at least if they need an album that will show the listeners how great the band is, I'm sure that "Room V" will help them. We are in front of one of the best progressive release of the year?

Damn, this "Room V" is so impressive, really the more I listen to it, the more I like this excellent album. We're lucky this year because if 2004 was the year of Thrash Metal, 2005 is probably the year of Prog Metal. With releases like "The Fullness Of Tim" by Redemption, this "Room V" or the last Beyond Twilight we cannot whine really.

"Room V" is a magisterial album, beautiful and really deep with a lot of enchanting melodies. The good point with this band comes from the fact that even if it is Prog Metal, we cannot find any musical "masturbation." I mean that we're not in front of a demonstration (that's unfortunately the case of a lot of Progressive bands) and at the end it's not so hard to listen to the album, it's not a weakness. Plus evidently our six musicians are really impressive and the excellent voice of Mike Baker (do you remember him on the last Ayreon ? ) gives shivers. The musicians are good and they have produced on this album 14 melancholic songs with a lot of beautiful melodies and riffs. This is not so powerful actually, we're not in front of a Symphony X, but on the other hand Shadow Gallery is unique and really original. Their songs can be sad but they can be catchy too, this is just a pleasure to listen to this album.

With a magisterial production, the sound like the artwork are great, this concept album will stay in our memories for a long time, and I really hope that it will help this band to win a bigger audiance and that deserves a lot of respect to be on the top of the list of the best Progressive combo. Let's hope too that we will have the luck to see them live one day too, because for the ones who don't know it Shadow Gallery have never played live (it's probably one of the reason for their lack of recognition?).

Believe me, we're in front of a real masterpiece, one of the best album of the year without any doubt. If you like Prog music or if you still don't know this band, no need to wait anymore minutes, you must find this album somewhere you won't regret it. In the style, "Room V" could become, in my opinion, one of this cult album that we can only find 2 or 3 times by decade. A must, do you hear me? A MUST?