Band:	Subsignal
Album:	Beautiful & Monstrous
Style:	Progressive metal
Release date:	July 25, 2009
Guest review by:	Milena

01. Where Angels Fear To Tread
02. Paradigm
03. The Sea
04. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing
05. Walking With Ghosts
06. I Go With The Wind
07. To Hope The Road Is Long
08. Beautiful & Monstrous
09. The Last Light Of Summer
10. Rain Is The Most Beautiful Color [special edition bonus]

Sieges Even is dead, long live Sieges Even! The most underrated German band, with talents such as the Holzwarth brothers in their ranks (Blind Guardian, Rhapsody Of Fire) got famous among fans of soft progressive rock with their second incarnation in the 2000s during which they've released two wonderful albums for the lovers of dreamy guitar passages, intricate rhythms, innocent-sounding vocals and loose concepts. After the band announced their split up in 2008, Arno Menses (vocals) and Markus Steffen (guitar) wanted to continue playing music together, so they formed Subsignal.

Their primary goal was to continue with music in Sieges Even style, but with adding various elements from other genres, and they've succeeded in their intentions completely. Roel Van Helden (Sun Caged) on drums and Ralf Schwager (Dreamscape) on bass will not disappoint lovers of Sieges Even's talented rhythmic section, while David Bertok (Dreamscape) on keys adds a twist to the band's style, contributing with lyrics for "To Hope The Road Is Long" and has a few solo spots as well. Arno and Markus pull most of the strings, and their unique talents, both in playing/singing and writing their music, certainly draw listeners to this band.

Everything about Beautiful And Monstrous is delicate, from the carefully woven threads of song structures, to Arno's implementation of several vocal styles, and precise placing of the solos to the way lyrics strike you with their incomprehensible nostalgia. This release is like a huge soap bubble children protect from the relentless wind. If you put even the tiniest amount of love into it, you'll gain love in spades. I wish I was able to write about it with use of a better language, but the only language of emotion is poetry, and Markus Steffen is certainly more of a poet than I am, so I shall let his words conclude this review as they did with the album:

"you might think
everything I see and breathe
is the fading light of fall
you're so wrong
for everything I see and breathe
everything I hear and feel
everything I write and say
is my life
everything that makes you turn
makes you turn away from me
makes you turn away from me
is my peace?"