PAGAN'S MIND: God's Equation

Produced by Pagan's Mind

Released: 2007

Pagan's Mind is one of those bands that I shouldn't like, but I do. "Progressive" power metal tends to get my goat even more than "regular" power metal because most of the time it simply isn't that progressive -- just contrived. Pagan's Mind is one of the few bands that does it more or less right however even if their last two albums sound exactly alike and while their latest didn't blow my mind it certainly kept me interested far longer than most others of a similar nature. Die-hard fans have apparently expressed some dismay over God's Equation but even if it isn't as good as they may have expected there is certainly much worse out there.

God's Equation is book-ended by two absolute corkers, the title track and "Osiris' Triumphant Return", that pretty much make this album worth buying by themselves. Pagan's Mind sound for all the world like a power metal version of Dream Theater on these tracks, which is exactly what this style of music should sound like. If all so-called "prog-power" was even half as good as this I wouldn't pick on it so often. Unfortunately, most of it is more like "United Alliance" and "Painted Skies", which are merely OK and really not much more than bog-standard songs for the genre although the lead guitar work -- and the guitar tone in general -- is outstanding throughout. "Atomic Firelight" is another stand-out, powered by an astonishing Meshuggah-type riff and featuring SYL-like filtered vocals, showing that these Norwegians truly deserve the "progressive" tag that is otherwise tossed around so recklessly. The ridiculously-named "Alien Kamikaze" is strikingly uncharacteristic of this band and has therefore taken some criticism; in reality it's actually pretty enjoyable rocking metal, albeit with plenty of cheese, but when an album is draped in such ludicrously clichéd art, cheese is to be expected somewhere. The presence of the Bowie cover "Hallo Spaceboy" in the middle of the running order is somewhat bemusing; the band adds nothing to it (they subtract from it, if anything) and it in turn adds nothing to the album. It's almost as if Pagan's Mind was looking for a classic song to fit to their spacey-mystical formula, but then couldn't quite figure out how to make it work.

Overall God's Equation isn't quite as consistent as Pagan's Mind has been in the past, but at least it doesn't sound like they've recorded Celestial Entrance yet again.

1. The Conception


2. God's Equation


3. United Alliance


4. Atomic Firelight


5. Hallo Spaceboy


6. Evolution Exceed


7. Alien Kamikaze


8. Painted Skies


9. Spirit Starcruiser


10. Farewell


11. Osiris' Triumphant Return

Rating: 72%