Longings Past - Meadows of Maseilya (1993)

Longings Past were a band from Michigan, and released a couple of full-length albums in the early 90's. This one is their first album. Their music is described as "epic heavy metal", which isn't really my style. I'm reminded of Fates Warning's No Exit, but they never really go in a progressive direction, instead preferring instead to keep the music simple and light. This places a lot of focus on the vocalist, which unfortunately isn't a good decision as he isn't good enough to carry the album by himself. To make things worse, they try to cram too many words in each stanza, leading the vocalist to sing at almost a rap tempo, which doesn't really fit with the music at all. I suppose their might be a market for this, but I find it completely uninspired.