Anubis "The Second Hand" Review

                Progressive Rock/Metal is pretty hard to do something unique in at this point, unless you’re willing to bridge it together with another genre, which is why I think Progressive Death Metal and even Progressive Black Metal have become so popular lately, but that’s a bit beside the point. Progressive Rock is a lot like cartoons and to quote South Park “The Simpsons did it,” but in this case it’s really more Dream Theater and Pink Floyd did it. Writing something unique could be a bit tough, but Anubis are laying down their cards with “The Second Hand” and trying their damnedest to release something memorable.

                There are only a couple specific songs I have to throw at you, I think it’ll get the point across on whether or not this album is worth it for you. The first is “Blackout,” now this 7 minute track is very Dream Theater sounding, not early Dream Theater, but more slow later Dream Theater, no song exactly pops out in my mind to relate it to exactly, but let’s be honest, most their slow songs sound the same. The song is slow, all the way through and there are a few songs on this album that are very much similar and the ones that aren’t basically sound like slow Pink Floyd songs. My problem starts to shine when you realise that basically every song on this album is slow. Nothing stands out, it’s just a slow album, the only real deviation comes with the song “These Changing Seasons III” which is a little more Green Day sounding for the first half of the song, but again it’s slow.

                Basically to summarize everything, this album is slow and it’s insanely slow pace makes it hard to listen to from beginning to end. While it’s nice in a way that it makes all the songs blend together which gives the album a nice flow, look at a song like “2112” that’s a 20 minute concept masterpiece, where all 7 parts blend and the song speeds up and slows down, it’s how you keep a listener enthralled. If you’re a diehard Progressive Rock fan, you might be all in for Anubis's "The Second Hand," it doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, but it might tide you over until the next big Prog release. If you’re not so much a Prog fan, skip it, you’ll be bored before the first song ends.

35/100

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