Iconoclast [CD]

Symphony X have never been boring - even when a straight melodic, proggy power act they had good variety, great melodies and songwriting - though Paradise had a much harsher sound, the variety and distinctiveness was still there, as well as a new found, admirable thrashiness and aggression which was a good evolution of their sound up to that point: Seeing that this album would effectively be in the same style, but, from what I could hear, more of a typical, less hoarse tone to Russell's voice, which I was all for, and whilst there is more variety to his voice in this album, there is less in effectively every other aspect of it.

This is a pretty monotonous album, quite frankly, with little variety in terms of lyrics (good thing in a sense: feels unified because of it I suppose), guitar-work or song-structured or pace, though there IS some there, for me there is not quite enough: It's a hard album for me to digest in the one sitting, one disc version OR two, because of how similar it all sort of sounds: Symphony X here have obviously aimed for a straight ahead, for the most part, heavy, thrashy album, their most straight forward yet, which, again, DID dissapoint me. What annoyed me most of all was the guitarwork: brilliant? HELL YES, blistering stuff here, but like the structures and vocal lines/choruses of the album, all very samey: and whilst the vocals and drums throw in some really, very awesome melodies and moments, the guitarwork, despite being stunningly played by Mr Romeo, never really connected to the rest of the music, in my opinion: X have always been like this to an extent, I suppose, the vocal melodies always pretty separate from the driving guitarwork, but, in my opinion, it's a little bit more obvious here, due to the repetetive nature of the music became something that detracted from the album rather than something I did not care about and went along with. The axe work here is very good, typical X style rythmn awesomeness, but unlike past albums, there are very few actual riffs that genuinely stick in the mind afterwards, its pretty much all just standard, albeit brilliantly done, solo's and chugging.

As for the actual quality of the songs,, well I did give it three stars in spite of the above faults: the melodies, the, vocals, the drums, and yes, the guitarwork, throw up some AWESOME stuff now and then: no bad songs at all. This is their least consistent album in terms of song quality as well,by quite a bit, but second rate Symphphony is still a heck of a lot better than most bands of this ilk will ever achieve, and Like I said before, there are plenty of highlights dotted throughout it all which, at the end, more than make up for the lack of variety to it: id probably rate it a four stars and a 08/10 if it wasn't so damn long: if it had all been shortened out a bit, then It could have been a short, sharp, blistering metal album, though not a perfect one, but as it stands, its far to long winded and stylistically uninteresting for that: somebody should have told romeo and the boys that a straight forward heavy album still can have more consistently memorable songs.

To cap it all off, a good album: very straight forward heavy, thrashy stuff, and it certainly has its quality moments dotted here and there, but is far to long winded to be anything more than a decent enough footnote in this brilliant band's history. Like symphony X? by all means, buy this, but don't expect anything like Odyssey, V or divine wings in terms of either style, density, OR quality.

07/10 (just about)

It has been 4 years since the release of Paradise Lost, an album I thought would be very hard to beat, but I think the boys have done it. This is one that grabs you on the very first listen. Blistering riffs and one of the best vocalists on the prog metal scene. As with Paradise lost, I think this is an essential one for any prog metal fan's collection.

I love, or should I say loved, Symphony X, but I'm definitely more of a fan of their melodic side, something that hasn't really been on show since 5 (or V). Sadly, for fans like me, not much of that band remains. Yes, there are tracks on here where Allan shows us what a great singer (as against "growler") he is, but just not enough of them.
And now for an admission: I've always thought Romeo's playing veered towards hackwork. Don't get me wrong, he's good, it's just there's so little originality or effort shown here. It's pretty much by the numbers prog-metal riffing, and I really wish he'd try a little bit harder.
There's not too much on offer here for fans of earlier Symphony X, but for those of you who prefer their prog-metal without the prog, or just enjoy the "heavier" version then I direct you to the, so far, overwhelmingly positive reviews already submitted, and urge you to buy this album. But if you're like me and mourn the loss of the old Symphony X, I'd suggest you dig out 5 and its predecessors, pop on the headphones and reflect on how great they used to be.