ALIAS EYE - In Focus
Album Reviews

ALIAS EYE – In Focus

If you are a Prog fan, Alias Eye from Mannheim, Germany, will already ring a bell for you. Their debut album, Field Of Names, made quite a few brows rise and received excellent reviews throughout the Rock and Metal media. No surprise when you remember that the opening title track still is one of the best Prog songs of all times, and the rest of the album also did not disappoint. Only shortly after, they took a turn to a more intellectual, Jazzy, and complex style with Different Point Of View, which earned them a spot as support act for Saga, but also took them away from the Hard Rock scene and made a German magazine put them on a pedestal with The Flower Kings. High praise, but also a label that put them in a dimly lit, far away corner of the Metal basement, which is only visited occasionally, but whenever you do visit, you discover the most delightful things that will occupy your time for hours when browsing through almost-forgotten joys. Now, almost four years later, these guys are back, and as the second album marked a considerable change in sound to its predecessor, In Focus has a very different feel than their 2003 output. Forgotten are self-indulgence in orgies of Progressive experiments, Alias Eye has returned to straight compositions. The longest of the 11 tracks comes in at 4:38 minutes (the last track will seems to be over 11 minutes long –- don’t be fooled, there is a hidden track at the end after several minutes of silence; that is not very original anymore, but this is the only point of criticism to be voiced about this album). Maybe this is at least partly due to a change in line-up where Matthias Richter on guitar was replaced …READ MORE