The Arkitecht - Hyperstructure (2008)

Uhhh... what the heck? This is like Awake-era Dream Theater mixed with pop, grunge, some Faith No More, some Pantera, some industrial-style death metal, some Symphony X, and even some jazz fusion. It tries to do everything and ends up doing nothing well. Now, it is impressive is that this is largely a one-man project, but that only goes so far. The production and playing are good. The guitarist in particular is actually quite impressive, at least for the few times he actually decides to play something interesting. The keyboards are well performed, but are in the typical cheesy progmetal style, and the guest vocals are okay but they have a noticable accent. However, none of that saves the unfocused songwriting. And even despite the variety of influences, I also don't hear much originality. A lot of the riffs in the whole album sounded similar to other riffs I've heard. Or perhaps I'm just getting old... Anyway, the last track, "Face Thief" is the best one here, but that seems a little over-long (32 minutes), and borrows heavily from Symphony X's much-superior "The Divine Wings of Tragedy".

Their MySpace page contains two songs from the album and two clips from "Face Thief".