Need
Hegaiamas: a song for freedom

Greek band Need sings a song for freedom, a very long one that ends this album. It is the fourth album by these guys and the press info says that they have been around playing with many big names in the genre and it also has a praising quote saying some good words about the band and their music. And what can go wrong with an album that has seven tracks and plays for over an hour? Progressive metal according to the format with long tracks, some overly long complexities, some pointless stuff and a way too long total playing time, that is how I would describe this and many other progressive albums released these days.

It is really well produced, the singer is good and the album is quite varied as well. But the long ending title track is one annoyance. If they were to make an emulation why not make the “epic” ending track a complete disk like Dream Theater, who they probably adore, made some years ago? I find tracks at over twenty minutes often ending up complete rubbish or part, rubbish and never interesting from start to end, kind of like this one that is rather dull.

They are strong musicians and their songs are generally good on this album, but a good album catches the listener’s attention and this album doesn’t. I think it sounds good to listen to but the only thing that really catches my ear is that boring spoken words dialogue about space, the universe, dreams, freedom and stuff – kind of like a malfunction in the brain and not really interesting at all. I think that they can do away with that spoken word part and about twenty minutes of the album and they would have a potential winner in this album.

Sure, you should not imagine that I dislike this album because I don’t – I just don’t think it is an album that grabs my attention. I think it lacks a hit song, and it lacks the elements that make a good album great. They should have dared to be progressive and move outside the well-threaded paths they follow with this album, what we call progressive metal is usually not very progressive these days. For me it is quite obvious that you don’t really need this album, but with that said it could still be an album to want for some of you.

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