Band:	Veda
Album:	Mental Pabulum
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	2006
A review by:	Jeff

01. Headwind
02. Chance
03. Friends Of Anger
04. Emergence
05. Chimere
06. New Cassandras
07. Mental Pabulum
08. Gods Of Nothingness
09. Across The Ocean
10. Signs Of Times
11. Money Maker

I'm from Toulouse so evidently I know the bands of my city. I discovered Veda with their first demo some years before and after a lot of delay finally they released their first album. The demo, even if the quality of recording wasn't really good, was already promising because it was a really cool and original Progressive Metal but now the production is different and by luck the music is even better!

The music of Veda is a lot more complex now. They play a real progressive Metal with a lot of different influences from Electro to Funk They use a lot of different sounds, they use a lot of Keyboards and the ambiances are damnly excellent. It's complex take a lot of directions (a bit like with Dream Theater even if I cannot say that it's similar musically speaking) and it's even a bit messy sometime but still, even if the structures of the songs are complex, it's really easy to listen to this records and since that all the songs are catchy with a really good interpretation, I'm sure that a lot of Prog fans will like "Mental Pabulum".

Talking about the interpretation, all the musicians have a nice musical skill. The singer is clearly better now and really guitarist, like drummer, bassist or keyboardist, they ALL know how to play perfectly with their instruments and it evidently means that you'll be able to find a lot of great soli.

The production is also really better now so evidently I don't have a lot of reproaches to do on the work of Veda. This is just a good confirmation on all the hopes that I had with their demo. Of course they can and will progress but for a first album it's a real success.

Veda will become, I'm sure one of the leaders of the Prog scene from France. They're original, they know how to play Metal so it should work for them. Remember this name if you like good technical Progressive Metal. "Mental Pabulum" is a really nice album.