Review by Rexorcist for Symphony X - Twilight in Olympus (1998)

Symphony X are pretty much the go-to band for the neoclassical sound.  Yes, there were earlier guitar pioneers, like Yngwie Malmsteen, but Symphony X are about the BAND, not the riffs.  It took three albums for them to perfect the art of riffage, thus being the firest neoclassical prog metal act.  Divine Wings of Tragedy is seen by some as their opus, but they hadn't yet mastered the art of album-making, which requires some diversity to stay as strong as possible for an hour.  That's something Divine Wings of Tragedy didn't quite have.  Twilight in Olympus had it in spades, and because of that I feel it is my proud obligation to express my opinion that Twilight in Olympus shows clear superiority over Divine Wings, which is an unpopular opinion to say the least.

Divine Wings of Tragedy was all about the progressive riffage mingling with the classical, but it was pretty much one kind of classical.  Twlight in Olypus sounds like it is in fact a magical album, one that givies into the glitter without giving up the crunch.  Because of this, the more surreal and mythical moments feel so natural that it's easy to float on a cloud whiles and at the same time headbanging.  This is very true for some of the more conventional songs as well, such as the incredible opener Smoke and Mirrors and the later Orion, which mingle the pop structure with the neoclassical prog sound beautifully.  But our show stealer is the thirteen minute epic, Through the Looking Glass, which recounts the story of the same name with a type of magic unheard of in previous Alice in Wonderland songs, one that does everything a prog epic should, deliver a part of a rock opera while carefully balancing out the multiple essential aspects of rock, metal, prog and classical.  bsolutely flawless.

This album carries a lot of tricks up its sleeves that Divine Wings didn't have, and to this point the album is only surpassed by the band via V: The New Mythology Suite, and closely followed by Paradise Lost.  This is THE essential neoclassical sound which anyone hoping to get into the genre should probably check out first.  This is also the album I return to the most when I want serious magic.