I have nothing against Altera Enigma personally, I'm just tired of artists who think they're pushing the boundaries of progressive music when really their music is a cheesy re-hashing of the late 90s Dream Theater-clone era. It's a bad sign when you're following bands who themselves are completely unoriginal, and unfortunately Altera Enigma fall into this category.

Why am I so annoyed at Alteration? Because the term "progressive" is thrown around liberally in the album's liner notes and the band's website, when in reality the music is a grotesque example of why the term "progressive" has such a bad name in most music circles.

Perhaps I wouldn't be so unreceptive to this album if the band's biography didn't profess that Altera Enigma were the most experimental and original band since The Beatles:

Altera Enigma is living proof that Progressive music is still vital, and is waiting to be fully explored. While drawing deeply on the best parts of Progressive Metal and Jazz Fusion, the band pushes the term "Progressive" well into the 21st century and beyond, creating a compelling, modern style which provides listeners with a glimpse into a higher musical realm that is now beginning to be fully explored.

I mean really.

"Higher musical realm"? You are not Pain of Salvation, Altera Enigma, you are Altera Enigma. You are the Altera Enigma who released a mild, bland, paint-by-numbers record, and you are the Altera Enigma who lack any trace of shame in the incredible self-effusiveness with which you promote it.

When you spell "progressive" with a capital "P" it leads me to believe you're the kind of person who thinks cramming as many odd time signatures into 6 minutes is the height of avant-garde.

But I digress from the point of this article, which is to describe the album in question. So here goes.

The drums are programmed, and sound shocking.

The production is OK.

The riffs, melodies and solos are cliched and cheesy.

There's 30 seconds of the most piss-weak sounding death growls I've ever heard.

Too many songs fade out - couldn't you think of a good way to finish the song?

The keyboards and samples came direct from that horrible, horrible science-fiction-themed nightmare I've been having since I was a kid.

After listening to the album through once, I had to force myself to put it on again in the interests of fairness to the band (to give them a fair go, if you will). If I got my way, I would never have to listen to this album or any like it ever again.

But I know how the so-called "prog" scene works, and I'm sure there are tons of these bands going around thinking they're pushing the term progressive into the 21st century, when in reality they're stuck squarely in the 20th.