Wow, it’s been quite a while since I”ve heard an interesting progressive metal album. I mean, the last Dream Theater album was pretty decent, but in my opinion “Octavarium” wasn’t world shocking. “Deviation From The Flow” by Malpractice isn’t really world shocking either, but in my opinion it’s a lot better the Dream Theater”s latest release.

For those of you who don’t know this band, Malpractice was formed in 1994 in Finland. They started as a thrash metal band, but soon cast aside their thrash influences and added making more melodic and progressive elements in their music. In 1998 Malpractice released their first full-length album “Of Shape And Balance”. The years between then and now were not always easy for the band: line-up changes and no label. In 2004 the band got a stable line-up and recorded another demo “Circles And Lines”.

That demo caught the attention of Spinefarm Records in their home country. After that the recordings for “Deviation From The Flow” are fairly easy finished.

The music on this album is really cool! Unlike some other progressive metal, the music on “Deviation From The Flow” is not annoying in any way. And the vocals are awesome, I really like them! Progressive singers sometimes tend to really sing at the top of their voice which makes the vocals somewhat deformed or ugly, yeah. Well, that’s not the case with Mika Uronen. The sound and production of the album is good too and has been in the hands of Anssi Kippo. If you like bands like Dream Theater, Pain Of Salvation and Evergrey… you’ll really gonna like Malpractise!