ILLUSION SUITE The Iron Cemetary

Norwegian progressive metal outfit, ILLUSION SUITE, made a very promising debut with their 2009 effort, "Final Hour", which was released through the Limb Music label. Since then the band has signed for Power Prog and been through a couple of line-up changes as well. 'The Iron Cemetary' is more or less following in the same footprints as the debut, still everything has been even more refined and taken a step furter this time. The comparison to fellow countrymen in Pagan's Mind and Circus Maximus are unavoidable, but on the other hand they don't by any means sound like a rip off of either of those bands. Some of the aggressive guitar riffs on this album has a lot in common with the style of Michael Romeo in Symphony X, so if you can imagine some kind of a hybrid between those three bands mentioned above you should have a good idea of what Illusion Suite sounds like if you don't know the band. The instrumental skills of the individual members are top notch and they have a brilliant singer in Bill Makatowicz, but what really makes 'The Iron Cemetary' extraordinary is the brilliant quality of the song material. They have managed to find a perfect balance between complex song structures, atmosphere, melody and aggression. The album is relatively short for a progressive metal album, but what we get through the 38 minutes is pure progressive magic. I must also add that Jens Bogren has done a great job with the mixing and mastering of this album. In case you haven't done so already, please do yourself a favor and buy 'The Iron Cemetary' now.

Diskography:
'Final Hour' 2009
'The Iron Cemetary' 2013