Band : Silent Memorial
Album title : Cosmic Handball
Label : Limb Music
Distributor : Limb Music
Release Date : 14/08/2009
Release : CD

This album is in fact a re-release of Silent Memorial’s first album, which was only released in Asia way back in 1998.  It was the success of “Retrospective”, their second album, that created a lot of discussion, and a regained interest in their first album, albeit this was almost impossible to find.

It was therefore that Limb Music decided to re-release their first album, with an improved sound.

During the period whent the album was recorded, the band was struggling to find a suitable vocalist, and finally it was Thomas Vikström  who handled the mike.  Now although I always thougt of Thomas  as a good vocalist, on some parts of this album he seems to be singing with his private parts firmly lodged in a benchvice.  That does not mean he didn’t do a good job, it’s just some parts that sound annoying to me, because of the very high pitched voice.
Otherwise the album is not bad at all, even if in some songs the keyboards are overfeatured to my liking.  Now of course not every prog group can deliver songs like Dream Theatre, or Vandenplas, to name but 2 of my favourite prog bands.
To cut a long story short, for an album that’s 11 years old, it does stand the test of time, and is definitely worth a listening.

75/100

Erik Morren.