Symphony X - The Damnation Game review
| Band: | Symphony X |
| Album: | The Damnation Game |
| Style: | Symphonic power metal, Progressive metal |
| Release date: | 1995 |
01. The Damnation Game
02. Dressed To Kill
03. The Edge Of Forever
04. Savage Curtain
05. Whispers
06. The Haunting
07. Secrets
08. A Winter's Dream - Prelude
09. A Winter's Dream - The Ascension
10. Enhanced Element (features Screensaver and Band Interview Part II) [special edition bonus]
This album is the salvation for Symphony X music! After the ugly eponymous album Symphony X, the guys from New Jersey created a good album that would define their musical style for many years. From the first song to the last, The Damnation Game sounds really interesting. With a new singer, Russell Allen, and on the basis of their first album, Symphony X manages to produce something different on the musical scene.
"The Damnation Game" and "Dressed to Kill" are both excellent songs but none of them is as good as "The Edge of Forever". This song will remain as one of the themes of the album V: The New Mythology Suite released five years later. The rest of the album has to be discovered too, especially if you are a fan. Finally the two last tracks "A Winter's Dream" are part of Symphony X history, as their first song divided into several parts [and it's a good song by the way!].
As a conclusion, The Damnation Game is a good album but it's on top of it the first really good album of Symphony X. The entire album is worth listening to and some songs will remain as the basis for future releases of the band. The new singer Russell Allen will become one of the most important guys in the band along with Michael Romeo and Michael Pinnella.
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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: 9
Visited by: 123 users
| BlankFile Posts: 686 From: Portugal |
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| Felipe04sm Posts: 4 From: Brazil  |
I bougth this one yesterday... Very very boring, nothing changes. 6 points for me.
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| Wes Posts: 423 From: Japan  |
Written by Felipe04sm on 20.06.2009 at 19:11 Dang, well without criticizing your opinion let me just tell you that this is possibly my favorite SymX album. 10/10 for me any day. I think I rated Paradise Lost 4/10 because I think it's awful. One of SymX's best solo's can be found on Whispers from Damnation Game. I think what I like about the band, and what most pre-Paradise Lost fans like about the band are the neoclassical elements and Russel's high vocals. I shouldn't assume you are a fan of Paradise Lost, and I won't. I just wanted to make a statement that there are many of us who love this album. I would be overjoyed if the band would make another album as good as this one. I love Russel's voice here. Recently he has used the same singing style on Avantasia's new albums and the new Star One and it is beautiful. In one interview with the band Michael states that while writing Paradise Lost they were listening to King Diamond, and wanted to make an album that "we would want to hear as kids". Very odd if you ask me, but it certainly makes sense now that we have heard Paradise Lost. I certainly hope they return to the style we see here, or on any album before Paradise Lost.
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK  |
I actually prefer this one overall to "Twilight In Olympus". Just about every track is stellar, and was a fantastic introduction to the band for Russell Allen. "Secrets" is quite possibly the most underrated Symphony X song, sheer magic! Although the whole album is captivating stuff. xD I certainly dont agree with the above poster about "Paradise Lost" being awful though. I think its an awesome album...
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| Kratos Posts: 156 From: USA  |
The whole album is killer and for me, it is also better then "Twlight In Olympus" imo  I also think "Paradise Lost" was an amazing album, but I see how people could hate it with Russell trying a new way of singing.
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK |
Written by Kratos on 24.11.2010 at 21:43  Hmm... I dont see a huge difference between Russell's vocals on "Paradise Lost" and their other albums. They may be a touch more aggressive, but his style is still very much the same as it always was. lol For me, "Twilight In Olympus" is the weakest album with Russell on vocals, (though Im not saying its a bad album, cos its definitely not! xD) and "The Damnation Game" is the most underrated. Id also love it if the first album was re-recorded with Russell on vocals, as the vocals are definitely the worst thing about the debut.
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| Kratos Posts: 156 From: USA |
Quote: Yeah, the only real difference is that its more aggressive, but I guess that kills the album for some fans. "The Damnation Game" is a really a underrated gem, imo, all the songs just have this awesome touch to it that I love and if they re-recorded their s/t that would be amazing, when they re-recorded Masquerade it sounded amazing, I could only imagine how great the whole album would turn out. 
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| Angelic Storm Melodious Posts: 6675 From: UK |
Written by Kratos on 25.11.2010 at 06:40 I guess, but I dont think "Paradise Lost" is THAT much more aggressive than their other stuff. Though I am a fan of more aggressive metal as well, so perhaps its just not something I notice.. lol There's still a lot of melody, and hooks which are classic Symphony X on it though. Russell is still an awesome singer, and he hasn't lost anything. I mean that voice on "The Sacrifice" is enough to melt steel! I know it melts me... hehe xD "The Damnation Game"'s songs have an almost mysterious, magical quality which is absent in a lot of their other stuff. Maybe it's the production, I dunno, but it has its own sound compared to the other albums, if not its own style. And yep, the re-recording of "Masquerade" was awesome. The version on the S/T is very good as well, but the better production, and majestic vocals of Russell just elevates it to a whole new level of awesome! <3 To hear the whole album re-recorded with Russell would be amazing, I hope one day they do it.
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| qlacs "The Quaker" Posts: 1537 From: Hungary  |
From Savage Curtain to Secrets, those 4 songs are very immature yet - melodies not quite right, uninteresting etc. But the rest... Damn.
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