Beyond the Stars is the sophomore release from German Prog-Metal rockers Ivory Tower. Actually, this reviewer would classify them as "Prog-Metal-Lite". They have the required metal chops and a prog attitude but they're not quite metal enough and just a little too middle-of-the-road to be truly progressive.

There seems lately to be a plethora of Dream Theater-like wannabes trying to stake a place in the burgeoning pantheon of great Neo-Prog bands but Ivory Tower is doing the same thing that many of them are doing; that is, they're not doing anything particularly new or original.

One of the complaints I have is the same-ness of several of the songs on this disc. You can skip around the tracks and pick out random bits without really getting a unique feel from each song. It's perfectly understandable for a band to have a particular style and feel to it's music, but at the same time each individual song should have a distinctive character that sets it apart from the rest of the tracks on the album. The songs on this album sort of run together without creating their own personality as individual compositions.

To give these guys some credit, they are certainly good musicians. They play their instruments well, it's just that what they play isn't that interesting. Guitarist Sven Böge delivers some nice hooks but he spends most of the disc doing Iron Maiden like riffs that aren't particularly original and become repetitious after a while, and there are no standout solos. They sport a keyboard player but the keys are mostly buried under mundane power chords. They have a good singer but he doesn't seem to have quite found his range yet. He sounds his best during the more melodic moments but those moments are very few.

I don't want to outright bash these guys because they do have potential. There is hope for these stalwart Teutons as they do have musical talent and there are some good moments on the disc. The closing track "Treehouse" is the standout track, an introspective journey into the mind of a sorrowful adult remembering the simplicity of childhood. If the rest of the album was of this quality they would have made for a far more interesting album. I hope that on future albums they stretch themselves out more musically and lyrically. I'll be looking for their next release with hopeful anticipation.

Shred Pick: "Treehouse"

Reviewed by Bruce Rusk

Visit the Official Ivory Tower website: www.ivorytower.de

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