• New Music Reviews
• |
• Archives
• |
• News
• |
• Submissions
• |
• About
• |
• 
• |
• 

January 2025

• Bonfire: Higher Ground
• The Big Deal: Electrified
• Landfall: Wide Open Sky

December 2024

• After Lapse: Pathways
• Illusion Force: Halfana
• Powell-Payne: Voilá

November 2024

• Sunstorm: Restless Fight
• Storace: Crossfire
• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
• Lionville: Supernatural
• Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
• Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
• Lonerider: Down In The Dust
• Seventh Crystal: Entity
• Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
• Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
• Impellitteri: War Machine
• Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter

October 2024

• Casandra's Crossing: Garden Of Earthly Delights
• DGM: Endless
• Daytona: Garder la Flamme
• Fate: Reconnect 'N Ignite
• Frost*: Life In The Wires
• Aries Descendant: From The Ashes Of Deceit
• Fans Of The Dark: Video
• Radioactive: Reset
• House Of Lords: Full Tilt Overdrive
• Cleanbreak: We Are The Fire

September 2024

• Sinner's Blood: Dark Horizons
• Serious Black: Rise Of Akhenaton
• Eclipse: Megalomanium II
• SteelCity: Reverence
• Hydra: ReHydrated
• Heartwind: III
• Gabrielle De Val and the Dragonlords: Tiger
• Find Me: Nightbound
• The Nail: The Nail
• Timeless Fairytale: A Story To Tell
• Stryper: When We Were Kings
• Phil Mogg: Moggs Motel
• Pure Reason Revolution: Coming Up To Consciousness
• Jordan Rudess: Permission To Fly

[ More Music Reviews ]

Dante: Saturnine

Progressive Rock/Metal

Rating: 4.5/5.0

ProgRock Records
www.myspace.com/danteprog
www.danteband.de
Review: Craig Hartranft,  06.14.2010

With their sophomore effort, Saturnine, German progressive band Dante will probably put prog purists (and elitists) into prog's seventh heaven. Saturnine is bolder, more immense, and even more complex than their debut The Inner Circle. Fortunately, for the uninitiated or sometime prog listener this work isn't too intricate to baffle. But if any volume is close to being so complicated to aurally obtuse. By example, the opener All My Life has many compositional twists and often shifts gears so quickly to cause whiplash. Yet as a whole it sounds good. Conversely, Last delivers on a more pedestrian level with its riff heaviness, strong vocals and vocal arrangements, and qualified melodic catchiness. Then a piece like borrows from early Dream Theater and makes it knottier by those occasional quick shifts. Later, take a deep breath, suspend your credulity, and open your mind because the 19 minute Vanessa is probably the most prophetic and imaginative prog you will hear this year.

Call it complex, complicated, the edge of genius, or the borders of madness, Dante's Saturnine is a devastatingly vigorous work of progressive music. My suggestion? Allow for repeated listening. I think you will be both challenged and inspired. Quite recommended!

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

Call it complex, complicated, the edge of genius, or the borders of madness, Dante's Saturnine is a devastatingly vigorous work of progressive music. My suggestion? Allow for repeated listening.

Alphabetical Index

The Powell Payne project, created in 2022 is the collaboration of Mark "Penfold Powell (ex-drummer of Psycho Kiss) and Adam Payne (former vocalist of Airrace). With guitarist Adam Davies and keyboard player ... [ Read More ]