As I have had some bad experiences involving Progressive Metal lately, my expectations were rather low when I was to listen to this demo, "Beyond The Wall Of Sleep", by the Italian Metal band TIME. Afterwards, my impression is positive. This is a pretty good demo.

The first thing that struck me was that the guitar sound was surprisingly heavy and distorted. I suspected that TIME, being an Italian Metal act, would sound speedy and undistorted like RHAPSODY OF FIRE with a little extra instrumental showing-off, but I was wrong. There was not much showing-off at all and the songs gave me a positive feeling and were quite interesting. The progressiveness is there, but there is a fair share of Heavy Metal at the heart of the music. To describe this album in short, it is heavy, creative and atmospheric Metal with a few progressive details as a final touch. The fact that Progressive Metal did not mean over-ambitious bullshit, in this case, made me happy. The female vocalist was also a surprise. She is really competent and possesses a respectable vocal range, and even though she sometimes sounds like she was singing in a pop/rock band, it still worked. She varies her singing as well and sound as good when she is aggressive or low-pitched as when she sounds like a pop singer.    

Sometimes TIME add a few details out of the ordinary. That works most of the time. The title track features a slight tempo difference between the vocals and the other instruments, which sounds different but pretty good. In the opener some keyboard (which actually reminded me of WINDIR, of all possible bands) is added, and that works, as well. The two last songs have piano parts incorporated. On the closer, “Life”, the piano duels against a distorted guitar, which is pretty interesting. The only thing I thought was out of place was the samba-inspired piano part on “A Strange Whisper”, which is supported by a guitar that made me think about Spanish beaches. That part could have been taken away.

All in all, this is a pretty good Metal demo, with nice musicianship, a good set of ideas, a progressive touch and roots firmly in the genre. The reason why I don’t give this a higher grade is that there are a lot of albums that could be described like that, and "Beyond The Wall Of Sleep" doesn’t offer anything to separate itself from them.

(Online August 22, 2007)