AGE OF NEMESIS – Terra Incognita

Age of Nemesis is a Hungarian-based Progressive Metal band that released their first album in 1998 in their native Hungarian tongue, and then their first English release in 2002. Terra Icognita represents their third English-based CD following in the footsteps of last year’s strong outing entitled Psychogeist.

Terra Icognita is a true concept album this time, telling a fictional story of a girl who had the chance to see things in the afterlife. One night she’s visited by an angel who takes her to “The Land Of Lights” where human souls go after their earthly leave. She joins a pact with the angel to keep secret all she was made privy to learn. Unfortunately, she can’t help herself and she whispers all she saw to her sleeping boyfriend; believing she found a “loophole” in the pact. The boyfriend awakes the next day feeling that his “mission” is to spread the word about the “vision” or dream he had. This mission statement isn’t received well by all people and all hell breaks loose. The album winds up weaving a tale of human selfishness, blind faith, the pain of helplessness, living with one’s conscience, and the pain of losing someone.

First, it makes sense to discuss the items that fall into the “things you need to know but shouldn’t make a difference” category. For example, since Age Of Nemesis writes in their native tongue of Hungarian, it seems to take years to get a release converted to English. Case in point is Terra Incognita — the music was actually recorded in 2002 when the Hungarian version was released. So, if you have that version, you won’t find anything new here except for new English vocal tracks.

The music itself is twelve tracks of lengthy Power Progressive Metal with the majority of tracks running well over five minutes. This isn’t a disc you slap in for a “quickie;” it’s aimed more at the patient listener with time on their hands. A few tracks have moments where they seem to drag on, more or less when the band starts to sound less aggressive and more like a typical Progressive Metal band. The band shines the most when they inject a bit of melody into the mix. For example, on the opener “Tree Of Life” where the aggressive guitars are occasionally broken by hints of a resounding chorus of “you and I” three-fourths of the way through the song. And then there’s “Another Existence” with an opening that sounds very epic, regal, and melodic. Another winner that actually has a chorus, and a catchy one at that, is “Someone Must Take The Blame” where melody is interwoven into the Power Progressive chords.

To further entice buyers, the USA version is being initially offered in DigiPak format, and the CD is enhanced with a link to a video for “Tree Of Life,” an expanded CD booklet, and four bonus MP3 tracks, which are cover tunes, but they are very well done.

Bottom line, Dream Theater fans won’t be disappointed with this release at all as some of it will be very comfortable. It’s a shame that the band is in a cycle where converting the lyrics and vocals to English takes them “years” versus “months.” If countries outside of Hungary had heard this disc five years ago, the band might have avoided the knee jerk reaction of calling them “Dream Theater clones.” All that aside, this is still a powerful and heavy Progressive Metal release that is very technically adept, mostly entertaining and enjoyable … just not necessarily the best choice for a quick ride to the supermarket.

Lineup

Zoltán Kiss – Vocals
Zoltán Fábián – Guitars, Acoustic Guitars
György Nagy – Keyboards
Csabia Berczelly – Bass, Acoustic Guitars
László Nagy – Drums