This is the band put together by Kevin Goocher, the dude who Omen brought in to replace JD Kimball on Eternal Black Dawn. Somehow Phantom-X have stayed off my radar, despite coming from my part of the country and having managed four albums in their eight years of existence. They've been prolific, but have yet to break big. One spin of this will probably make it pretty clear why that is.

Not that this is bad, it's not. There's a very cool 80's vibe to the guitar playing on this, and some solid riffing. The production is weak, with no instrument getting any real focus, and the guitars are kind of downplayed in the mix in favor of the vocals. Goocher is a decent vocalist, and he knows how to work what he's got, but his singing gets too much of an upfront place in the music, and that doesn't play to his strengths. He's got a kind of Jon Oliva kind of sound without the upper range, and works best when he's accompaniment, not lead. There's a Savatage kind of vibe to this whole album, as a matter of fact, what with the traditional US-metal songwriting and the theatrical imagery. Sometimes this band conjures a good song, like the serpentine "Rise of the Phantom", but the fact is that this album is too long, and has too much filler material that sounds too much alike. This makes good background music, but it's not A-Grade.