Band:	Three
Album:	The End Is Begun
Style:	Progressive rock
Release date:	July 2007

01. The Word Is Born Of Flame
02. The End Is Begun
03. Battle Cry
04. All That Remains
05. My Divided Falling
06. Serpents In Disguise
07. Been To The Future
08. Bleeding Me Home
09. Live Entertainment
10. Diamond In The Crush
11. Shadow Play
12. These Iron Bones
13. The Last Day [feat. Jerry Marotta]
14. See Emily Play [Pink Floyd cover] [Special Edition bonus]

I can't even remember the last time I heard an album so complex, jammed with all kind of musical influences and blends that I felt my head was about to explode after resisting a terrible head-ache. Three achieved that feeling with their progressive soft rock packed with a weird mixture of Rush, Dream Theater, Coheed And Cambria, Canned Heat, The Mars Volta some other pop band I've never heard of and even some Beatles and Mew hidden right there in the bottom.

If I was able to publish a "one-word" critique I'd simply say?INTERESTING?that would be it, but the ambiguity of the word would be the demise of the review; yes the band is far more Interesting than many of the things we all hear today, they are great musicians and their brains must be working at full speed each time they write a song. The music is just as complex, heavy and bizarre as the whole Porcupine Tree discography and finally their whole environment and atmospheres are dark and chilling, just in the mood of Tool just to name someone.

But in my ears this just doesn't feel right at all, I know many people could be worshiping this band to the point of singing-along the entire track list of this record, but there are major problems with it and I'll try to explain with pleasure in my fingers. The first big thing is the vocal tone, it's so melodious and angelical that sounds like a mixture between Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys and James LaBrie from Dream Theater, I swear I'm not joking and I am definitely not using the Nick Carter comparison as a gag, the vocalist in Three does have that "Pop/boy-band" tone and it really does sound like the aforementioned blond guy specially when using small vibratos and smooth falsettos, if you ask me, it might sound fresh and new to have this particular tone in rock music, but it becomes truly annoying after the first 10 minutes?

Another letdown comes with the lyrical themes; I don't usually care about this matter, let's face it, most metal bands don't even make sense in that department and it gets worse when bloody throats enter and make growls out of words. Three on the other hand has insanely clean vocals (I'm not going to mention Nick Carter again?) and it actually feels like they have something very important to say with that tone?so you start listening and paying more attention to what the group is trying to say?turns out it's a pseudo-poetic/cultural manifesto that drowns itself into a huge spiral of nothingness, in short it's just dull words that were used by every band in the 70's filtered by a twisted mind hoping to "make some sense" and ends up saying less than nothing.

Still the music is way heavy and interesting, that side is more than worthwhile for sure, but the fact that this album as a whole is so "hard to digest" makes my cells explode instantly. So?I haven't done this before, this is the first (and hopefully the last) time I ever publish a review with two ratings, I know this band has its followers, people who actually understand their "thing" and have everything Three?but there's also regular people who don't have the skills or whatever it takes to bare this blender, so?

Rating as a Fan: 8.5
Rating as an Outsider: 6.5

The End!