The debut album Psychotic Symphony (see review), of the super group Sons Of Apollo was one of the prog metal highlights of the year 2017. Now, two years later Soto, Portnoy, Sheehan, Sherinian and Bumblefoot put out a special live release filmed and recorded at the spectacular Roman amphitheatre in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. All the songs, with the exception of Figaro's Whore, of Psychotic Symphony can be found on this album and I have to say that the live versions of these songs sound even better; especially tracks like God Of The Sun or Coming Home are utterly brilliant. However the rest of this album is filled with covers and I am really not a fan of covers, so 10 covers on one album is far too much! Moreover, I truly believe that you had better stay away from covering classic rock songs like Comfortably Numb, Dream On, Kashmir or The Show Must Go On, at least that is my opinion!! The three Dream Theater “covers” on this album however are more than excellent; especially Lines In The Sand belongs to the highlights of this album. Furthermore, every band member, with the exception of Mike P., has his own solo spot and these four musical pieces are utterly boring and redundant indeed, as everybody knows that these guys can play/sing..... So, that leaves us with excellent live versions of the debut songs, four redundant solo spots, seven covers which are no “improvement” of the original tracks and three DT covers which sound more than excellent, so this release is only interesting for die-hard Sons Of Apollo fans!! **** Martien Koolen (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
