Review Summary: one fantastic song does not a superb album make.
My imaginings of the perfect metal song often conjure up sounds similar to Pagan’s Mind’s opening track, ‘The Celestine Prophecy’. Now, I am not one to outright praise solitary tracks, but this is a special case. The track is brilliantly put together, with multiple verses, bridges, solos, etc. It is progressively thrilling as every part in the story unfolds more boldly, more epically than before. Dynamics come into play at all times, setting the scenes, remembering past events, and foreshadowing future events. To top it all off, the band members are wizards at playing their instruments, and have both the technical skills and impressive restraint to remain in endless sync. Yet let’s not forget those grand melodies and that awesome chorus! In short, ‘The Celestine Prophecy’ embodies everything superb about melodic metal (or in this case, progressive power metal), and for that reason, the rest of the album fails to meet expectations.
Although not their intent, Pagan’s Mind set themselves up for failure by placing their best song first. Everything fit together seamlessly for the first song, but such a feat was never duplicated. They definitely tried to recover, but everything else just seems lackluster in comparison. The progressive elements, although well-done, prove tiresome with time. Considering the album’s superb songwriting, the band slowly proved less restraint with their precocious self-worship, and instead became progressively obnoxious. Consequently, songs just blend and fade into one long, monotonous track; suddenly, the album loses its memorability.
After all is said and done,
Enigmatic: Calling is a great progressive power metal album. Although overly long and ambitious (it’s also a concept album, but the concept is so ridiculous that it wasn’t worth mentioning) the cheese is served tastily through technical, yet restrained instrumentation. However, they are certainly not restrained in distortion, crushing guitars permeate every song. Those who enjoy heavy, progressive, melodic, power metal, should find something enjoyable here. Others who can’t stomach this sort of thing should be given a bag for their travels, and their vomit.
