Believer - Gabriel (2009)

I had moderately high hopes for this album, considering that Believer's 1993 offering Dimensions was one of my favorites back in the day. Unfortunately, this album is not very interesting. It still sounds like Believer, but on the whole it sounds uninspired. The riffs and vocals still have their distinctive sound, but a lot of the riffs and vocals phrasings sound like too similar to what they've already done. Most of the album is mid-paced and not very aggressive, and the weak production doesn't help this. The few times they did try to venture into new territory (with clean vocals and spacey keyboards) were largely unsuccessful. I didn't figure they'd come up with something as impressive as the well-before-its-time "Trilogy of Knowledge" from Dimensions, but I was expecting something better than this.