Oratory was familiar to me as I already owned their sophomore album 'Beyond Earth' (2002). The band surprised me with that album, even though not musically, but Ana Lara's strong vocals. I knew the band once had a male vocalist, and the vocal duties on 'Illusion Dimensions' were mainly handled by Marco Alves, Ana Lara's role is much smaller, though very important.

The album opens with atmospheric intro, which presents the melody recurring during the album, and raised my expected value to heights. 'With Glory and Melody' carries the melody, but also the drawbacks are hastily clear. At first, Mr. Alves' vocals pretty much annoyed me. His voice isn't very powerful and he sounds more like a pop singer at times, but still his voice is individual and that fact won me over, because his voice fits quite well with Oratory's melodic metal meets power metal. He hits the right notes and that's one of the important issues, but lacks in his skill of English pronunciation and his sibilant letter "s" begins to annoy soon. Ana Lara's voice is powerful, but not enough heard. The biggest drawback is the drum work, which is very unsteady, limping. Plus, the drums sound machinelike, very flat. The album lacks low end, badly, but otherwise the sound is okay, if edgeless.

The music is built from various bits 'n' pieces: Melodic metal and power metal (Helloween style happy banging), with some baroque keyboard work (though only at times, because it is very varying) and symphonic elements. At better times, the music is very good indeed, but some parts are close to put me to sleep. Sometimes the music has original touch, but at times it's totally cliched. So all in all it is all very changing in quality. For example, 'Rising Land' has solid power going on in it, but power metal piece 'Choose Your Future' does sound a bit amateurish when compared to it. I gotta say, that obligatory slow song is good one this time. Instrumentalists (minus the drummer) handle their quarters well, and before all, I like the synths that feature some pretty individual touches, such as creating more ambient soundscapes. The synth solos, on the other hand, aren't that good at all. Cover artwork looks amazing, but I'm a space freak anyways. Lyrics deal with space things, along with power metal cliched ones.

I like to listen to 'Illusion Dimensions', when I want the music melodic. The songs are definitely catchy, and I found myself humming especially that melody every now and then. The follow-up is better done in many ways, but still this is a good debut, if lacking in some areas. So close, but still so far...

Rating: 6+ (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
06/10/2008 21:30