Astra
Broken Balance

They started their musical life as a Dream Theater cover band, then they became Astra a band that is now releasing their third album under that moniker. An album called Broken Balance that has a pretty low key appearance, the cover art looks pretty ordinary to say the least. But you should never judge a book by its cover and this one seem to have a bit of substance in between with a guitarist that also plays in the great band DGM so they would have the right abilities to make a great album.

It is surprisingly non-progressive considering the band’s progressive appearance. It is still somewhat progressive but I would more see it is as a melodic metal band with some progressive touches rather than a progressive band. Their music is easy to take in, it has some depth but not so that it would take indefinite repeat plays. Fairly good and modern production, nothing overwhelming though just a production typical of its time and genre. Good singer though, excellent in his best moments but a bit up and down over the entirety of the album. Okay variation over a dozen tracks and just short of 55 minutes playing time, which frankly is a tad long.

I think that the overall view I have on this album is that it is a good album, it starts out being great but ends up rather ordinary meaning that the average of the album is good but no more than that. The opening quartet of tracks are the strongest then it averages out, best track is the third one called Sunrise to Sunset which has a brilliant chorus and flows brilliantly from start to finish. Worth mentioning are also the opening track Losing My Ego along with the fourth Too Late which both set a good tone. Too bad the album isn’t then able to keep up but it is a good piece of music nevertheless.

Still, it is hard to see who it is really aimed at. This album hovers somewhere between, it is not progressive enough for the progressive metal fans and it may seem too progressive for the other end of the scale. A bit of an in between album, good, but it could have been better as the first third of the album seem to indicate. Far from bad but also far from brilliant, that is how Broken Balance can be rated.

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