Forgotten Realm

And you shouldn’t cause they produced some of the finest fruit from the 80’s US underground once they relocated to Texas from their sweet home Alabama where the skies were too blue to rain steel and metal obviously… well, in Texas they were not, and metal had gripped its denizens’ imagination with quite some style at that, as the guys quickly found the vocal talent Mike Soliz (also Watchtower, Militia, Assalant, etc.) and the drummer Ken Ortiz, and were ready to go, shooting their debut demo in 1987 which saw them fonder of the power/speed metal side of the spectre by combining the velocity of Agent Steel and Savage Grace with the more epic arrangements of early Attacker and Griffin.

Neither Soliz nor Ortiz was around for the demo reviewed here which was a major upgrade towards state-of-the-art complex technical/progressive thrash the guys stitching quite a few challenging mathematical equations following the lofty examples from Watchtower’s “Control & Resistance” and Deathrow’s “Deception Ignored”. The short “serenity vs. hecticness” instrumental intro “Vision” already exhibits style in spades, and “The Eagle's War Night” follows oblivion... sorry, obediently by serving knots of stupendous riffs some of which are played quite fast as well, the dramatic high-strung clean vocals of the Soliz replacement, the name Chris Collins (Majesty/Dream Theater), soaring above these dexterously-assembled rifforamas that still tolerate a couple of more melodic twists including some from the lead department. “Tales of Vindication” is the next in line wild ride, an all-instrumental maze which comes with an epic flair that binds it with the debut demo, early Fates Warning as well, but not to such a big extent as there’s this infernal intricacy involved, too, plus a superb laid-back “bass vs. leads” etude.

“Millennium” would be a challenge even for the Watchtower guys to pull it out, a tightly woven puzzle with the overdramatic vocals back in action, the time and tempo shifts following in very quick succession, a slightly more linear passage provided mid-way to put the listener back on track alongside the quiet, tranquil finale. The title-track reverts back to the all-instrumental format which settles for a main balladic motif the guys only sporadically breaking the peaceful mode with sharp jarring thrashy carvings, the leads ensuring there are no disappointed at the end with a beautiful virtuoso pirouette.

This is a really fine addition to the quite voluminous underground resistance movement in the US (Nemesys, Myramainz, Sedition, Sintillion, Vision Purple, etc.) that was also on the technical/progressive side and helped keep all the old school values intact for a number of years, the guys enriching them with these 21-min of expert musicianship. The excellent sound quality suggested more time spent in the studio which could have led to a potential full-length recording later, but that was it from this rare Alabama/Texas collaboration, one that avoided the oblivion status in 2009 with a compilation containing both demos, a possible precursor to another technical/progressive metal crusade to remember.