(Progressive Metal) [CD] Astra - From Within (Japanese Edition) - 2009, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

There is always a level of skepticism that should be applied to any band that starts out as a tribute band, particularly a heavily imitated one within a given style. But in spite of Astra’s past as a Dream Theater tribute band of the Italian scene, a scene that is heavily known for putting out similar acts to the New York based fathers of progressive metal, they do a great job at putting together an album in this style. The songs are concise, easy to follow, free of excessive stylistic meandering, and set in a coherent structure that loosely resembles a power progressive take on the style.

Though stylistically this has a lot in common with “Images And Words”, “From Within” comes off quite differently due to a combination of performance practices and sectional emphasis. While Dream Theater tends to center attention around the virtuosity of all its members, this album consistency focuses on a collective effort at putting forth memorable songs with accessible elements, particularly around their choruses. Principle guitarist and keyboardist Emanuel Casali takes on the roles of Ruddess and Petrucci, but generally avoids getting as fancy as both and complements the songs rather than trying to rule them, and is accompanied by a rhythm guitarist who fills a riff gap that has always existed in DM’S live performances. Vocalist Titta Tani has some commonalities with LaBrie, but often will also emulate the more gravely tone of Freddy Mercury, as well as the rougher still shouts of Russell Allen on many of the band’s heavier numbers.

There pace from song to song is fairly even, as most of them tend to rely on a combination of jazzy sounding slower sections and faster speed metal ones. Some of these fall into the category of melodic rock/metal oriented epics with faster sections like “Save Another Day” and “Simple Mind”, while most of the others have a strong amount of Symphony X oriented characteristics. “Hypocrisy” actually sounds very similar to some of the really heavy material heard on the earlier half of Symphony X’s “The Odyssey”, particularly in the dark and low end sounding rhythm guitar tracks. An interesting outlier that actually falls into neither category is “Promises You Made”, which actually sounds heavily similar to the hybrid of Dark Moor styled power metal and progressive additives heard on the lesser known Spanish outfit Arwen, and also mirrors the dense, Queen inspired backup choruses that said band used so well.

The reasons why not to check out this band and this album are virtually non-existent if you like Dream Theater’s early work and Symphony X. The only flaw that I see in this release is that they ended a straight shot of aggressive sounding technical metal with a lackluster ballad in “Never Say Goodbye”, which although not bad for an AOR ballad, is completely out of place, comes off as stagnant and safe compared to the rest of the album, and sort of spoils the ending a bit. But regardless of this, the band definitely puts forth a quality sound that differentiates itself a bit from most of the established acts. 2009 may shape up to be a good year for progressive metal if we get more releases like this.

Review written by hells_unicorn for www.metal-observer.com

Titta Tani - Vocals
Filippo Berlini - Drums
Emanuele Casali - Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Silvio D'onorio De Meo - Guitars
Andrea Casali - Vocals, Bass