Secret Sphere
A Time Never Come

"A Time Never Come" is the second album from this very Italian band, Secret Sphere, who play a good hybrid of melodic power and progressive metal... just to give you an idea, they remind me of Labyrinth but with more keyboards. The band consists of two guitarists (Paolo and Aldo), a bassist (Andrea), the drummer (Luca), the talented Roberto on vocals and Antonio on keyboards. The technically skilled sextet could be seen (and heard) as a meeting point between the Labyrinth of RTHD and the more melodic Stratovarius, a meeting attributed to the massive dose of keyboards present throughout the album.

The album is divided into 4 chapters plus an introductory one represented by the first two tracks, but let's move on to the description of the individual songs, as I find it fair and deserving for the band that their work is described in meticulous detail.

It starts with "Gate Of Wisdom", a spoken intro wisely accompanied by keyboards with a futuristic flavor (a bit like Macalpine, to understand) lasting 39 seconds; it then moves to the first real song of the album: "Legend" where you can appreciate the intro played on the piano followed by an attack from all the instruments, from which the guitar stands out for precision and speed played masterfully, and the beauty of Roberto's voice: the vocal lines are at times dreamy, at times angry, but always in high tones. Speaking of tones and voice, it must be said that Roberto, as talented as he is (and finally we have someone who pronounces English well), remains very attached to the usual power metal vocal clichés. The song is a succession of solos between guitar and keyboards, while the rhythm section remains more oriented towards classic power, with endless double bass drum patterns and bass put slightly in the background. We then move to the third track: "Under The Flag Of Mary Read", masterfully conducted throughout its considerable length, by the guitars that this time become aggressive: the song could be considered the most prog of the entire album since we find various tempo changes, blazing solos, and melody changes (calmer parts are juxtaposed with some aggressive, in-your-face ones!). We then move on to "The Brave", a song that, to be honest, seems rather unnecessary and dull due to its alarmingly predictable nature and an excessive desire to do something different; I also find the use of overly pompous and baroque keyboards unnecessary and redundant. 5th track: a true masterpiece, "Emotions", no title could be more appropriate for this very short masterpiece lasting only 85 seconds... an instrumental of disarming refinement that highlights the absolute technical skills of the sextet, calm, serene with vaguely jazz tones, it is the prelude to another great song: "Oblivion", which begins with an organ intro (decidedly effective) and becomes decidedly menacing, a truly masterful speed/prog metal, excellent vocal lines, double bass drum slashes, decisive tempo changes, bass that is finally heard. From the 2:30 mark, the most beautiful part of the song starts, according to me, the instrumental part, where the guitar dominates and leads us to a spectacular song finale that will satisfy the most refined tastes. We then move to "Lady Of Silence", a song that, although not ugly, honestly did not give me anything, again the use of keyboards seems excessive to me. The only redeeming factor is the great theatricality of the voice, which in this case remains in slightly lower tones but no less effective for this reason. We then move to the most classic of ballads, which, to be honest, falls a bit into anonymity and feels a lot like the songs "Anywhere" by Avantasia but remains nonetheless a beautiful delicate song with no particular pretensions. Another instrumental, this time more menacing, fast, and sharp, we are talking about "Paganini's Nightmare" where guitar solos alternate with keyboard solos, a bit plastic to be honest, but still pleasant... I would skip the vocal part which seems like a half-growl but is of dubious taste. We finally come to another great song based heavily, once again, on speed: I am talking about "Hamelin", a song that owes much to Labyrinth and, thanks also to a decidedly catchy refrain, turns out to be pleasant and flows into our ears very easily (ah... it is the happiest song on the album). We then move to the last instrumental of the album, a really bad piece, but one of those things that makes you think of phrases like "How the hell did they think to ruin the album with this crap?!?!!??!?!", the title of this horrendous thing (stay away!!!) is "Ascension", which leads us to the last song of the album "Dr. Faustus", a beautiful song teetering between prog and power, played decidedly well even if excessively long.

In the end, a good album, which might never go down in power-prog history but is played well and produced even better. An 8.5 is well deserved!