“Prisoner Of Imagination” is my first encounter with the Amsterdam based band Dark Reign. This band was founded late 2002 by drummer Henk and guitarist Eduard because they didn’t like the music of their former band anymore. After a couple of months the line-up was completed. The band has a lot of influences in their song writing. The band mentions Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Opeth as main influences.
Singer Mathijs has left the band a little while after the recordings of “Prisoner Of Imagination”. He has been replaced by Jurriaan. With their new singer, the band wants to focus on more live shows and the recording of a new album.

The production of “Prisoner Of Imagination” is pretty good for a beginning band and Hans van Kampen did a fine job on producing and mixing the album. Of course, as a music lover I have some minor details to nag about. The drums sound a bit out of time sometimes. I know it’s just a detail, but a song has to have a solid rhythm foundation in my opinion. Second of all, the guitar solos are a bit on the simple side. I know that it’s pretty hard to come up with a cool and original solo. But these solos sound a bit uninspired to me. If the guitar players work on that for the next album, it might be a killer!