Band : Day Six
Album title : The Grand Design
Label : Lion Music
Distributor : Bertus
Release date : 18/06/2010
Release : CD

I'm not entirely sure if this album really is the debut album of Day Six, a band that before 2002 used to go around under the monicker of Peanuts - and at that time were a punk band, since some sources suggest they already released an album in 2003 called Eternal Dignity, but as far as I could find out, this earlier work was almost impossible to find outside the Netherlands, so maybe that's why in the biography Lion Music is calling this their debut album.

What's in store for us ?  Well to be honest the first time I played this CD I wasn't entirely convinced.
Mainly because at first glance I found the songs to be lacking something, and what was lacking I found out after a couple of spins, is that you have to grow into the songs. They're built up layer after layer, and so it might seem to take a while before they're going full throttle. It is definitively progressive metal, but with other influences as well. Imagine a blend (personally I prefer my whisky to be a malt...) between Dream Theater, Pink Floyd, Rush and Opeth and that's about it. A massive guitar sound, with sometimes rather complex keyboards/ synths, backed up by a good rhythm section. O, and did I mention that Robbie Van Stiphout has just the right voice for this kind of music. The theme of the album is about an extraterrestrial spaceship, being found in Lake Vostok - Antarctica by some scientists, and what happens to them afterwards. How they came up with this story I don't know, but admit it, it sounds a lot more original than all those bands going back to Norse Mythology, or other mythology if you want, or those songs or albums telling for the umpteenth time about the clash between good and evil...

I really do not care if it's these guys debut album or not. They have produced a very good album and I'm hoping to hear more material from them.

88/100

Erik Morren.