Holy Jesus, what is this!! Fans of Awake-period Dream Theatre, this is what you are waiting for. Just out of nowhere comes Outworld, the PROGRESSIVE METAL SENSATION of the year 2006. This Texas-based band (Rusty Cooley, Carlos, Bobby Williamson, Shawn Kasack and Matt Mckenna) took me by surprise. The self-titled album has got a superb production and sound, and nine songs with all a strong structure, great melodies and very melodic.

A huge plus point is that Outworld isn’t just a clone of Dream Theatre but that they add extra dimension to the songs. From classical music influences like on ‘Riders’ (Mr. Malmsteen should be absolutely jealous about this song!) to pure power metal as ‘War Cry’ (vocals like Rob Halford in his best days). From progressive metal to power ballads (the impressive ‘The Never’). With ‘Prestitude To Madness’ the love of classical music is absolutely clear.

The music is more guitar-oriented than the music of Dream Theatre, and shows a lot of influences of bands like the Scandinavian Beyond Twilight, Malmsteen and Symphony X.

The vocals of Zema fit very well to the Outworld songs; sometimes screaming, then again a powerful metal voice and another time very emotional. All in one a great voice added by a superb musician. Especially guitar player Rusty Cooley with his powerful riffs and terrific solos, it is a pleasure listening to his solos. It wouldn’t be fair not mentioning the musicians responsible for the great melodic lines (Williamson on keyboard) and for the strong rhythm foundation (Shawn Kasack on bass guitar and Matt Mckenna on drums).

Outworld has made an outstanding progressive metal album and doesn’t deserve the classification of just a Dream Theatre clone, the songs are progressive jewels one by one. This band will be rated very high in my top 10 of the best metal albums of 2006, that is for sure. Buy this record!!!