Leviathan band
Scoring the Chapters

Leviathan - Scoring the Chapters
1997 Corrosive Records

As a lover of refined and particular music, I wanted to draw some attention to this album.
Perhaps a forgotten album dating back to 1997, but I find it to be a good product of progressive rock metal.
The band in question is called Leviathan, and this album is titled Scoring the Chapters.
It starts with the intro Salvation, dark and alarming with a spoken background, then flows into the first
song Friends Imaginary, a decidedly particular song with a dark sound.
Jeff Ward's voice is excellent in tone and interpretation, while as for the guitar solos
by Ronnie Skeen and John Lutzow, they do not particularly impress in terms of technique and virtuosity.
The guitar work is refined in the riffs and quite contained in the solos, however, it is a good prog
metal song.
Paying the Toll has an initial Iron Maiden-esque riff, but then it develops nicely and also contains a good refrain,
a track that flows smoothly.
In The Door, the standouts are Derek Blake's bass and Trevor Helfer's drums, a piece characterized by numerous
breaks and syncopations.
We arrive at If These Walls Could Talk, a somewhat long-winded track lasting almost 7 and a half minutes and that ultimately didn't
impress me much.
It goes better with All Sins Returned, a song with robust and convincing guitar riffing and powerful vocals.
The track The Last King of the Highlands unfortunately doesn't fully impress, despite there being good intentions.
The idea for an acoustic track is good for Born Unto, but not for its duration (a full 8 minutes!!!), 3 and a half or 4 would have sufficed.
Beware, because now an 11-minute piece arrives, but it is real refined and very articulated progressive metal,
the song Turning Up Broken, which I liked.
It's a pity for the final song; instead of closing with a bang, Leviathan opts for another acoustic piece of over 8 minutes.
There are ups and downs in this album, but this is perhaps a bit of a flaw of progressive metal, with long-winded works from time to
time.
Of course, it's not a precise rule, but it often happens in such a complex musical genre.
In conclusion, this Scoring the Chapters is a good album that doesn't make us shout for a miracle.
It cannot be compared to the sacred monsters of prog metal like Dream Theater or Fates Warning, but there's a little something here and there
in terms of ideas and structures.

review by Angelowar6