Transcendence

Artist: Crimson Glory
Label: Mca
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 076732635025
EAN: 0076732635025
ASIN: B000002O6O

Release Date: 1991-07-01

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General

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General

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General

| Hard Rock & Metal | Styles | Music

Progressive Metal

| Progressive | Rock | Styles | Music

CDs $7 - $10

CDs $7 - $10

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Listmania:

The best Prog Rock/Metal Music
My fav Progressive Metal CD
True. Heavy. Metal.

Tracks:

Lady of Winter
Red Sharks
Painted Skies
Masque of the Red Death
In Dark Places
Where Dragons Rule
Lonely
Burning Bridges
Eternal World
Transcendence

Similar Items:

Crimson Glory
Astronomica
Strange & Beautiful
Perfect Symmetry
Parallels

Customer Reviews:

I Don't Know.......2005-09-02

I came across this album a long time ago,I didn't know what to think of it,the band wears masks.I give this album a two star because of the singers(Midnight)voice is good and the song
Red Sharks is good.This band is from Florida and there one of the first power metal bands.The song Lady Of Winter is crap and really annoying,Painted Skies is a ballad,In Dark Places starts off good but then turns into crap.Where Dragons Rule has a good high scream in it,Lonely is gay,that's like a butt rock song and so is Burning Bridges.I guess Eternal World is an okay song,the song Transcendence is a ballad and is not good and I don't think it's haunting at all.This is a slow album.This is one of the better reviews I have written for power metal but it's still not good,but everyone has there own opinion!

Still is relevant after all of these years.......2005-03-11

Well, I got to tell you that this album will ALWAYS be a favorite of mine. My uncle was a metal head and he gave me this on cassette right after it was released, my freshman year in high school. I didn't know what power metal was, and my whole metal world was composed of Ozzy, Metallica, Megadeth (Rust in Peace is still one of the best metal albums of all time, period), and Helloween. This album blew me away from the very first listen. Seventeen years later and it still sounds relevant, never outdated, and just plain good.

It truly is a work of art. There is just something about the atmosphere that the whole album produces. It's hard to put my spiderfingers on it, but it is different than anything that you will hear.

I have since gotten my hands on each of their releases, post and pre Transcendence. Each is worth listening, but this truly was their high point. I hope that Drenning and the gang continue to put out music in the future. Thanks guys for a great album, one that has been a pretty big part of over half of my life. Cheers!!

unparalleled.......2004-12-27

When I was young, I used to purchase metal albums just because the album cover looked cool. I was a fan of metal, but not very experimental. It turned out that cover art turned me onto a lot of talented artists that I never would've experienced. This was one of those purchases. Sci-fi cover art. Astrological symbols. Musicians with metal masks. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was left stunned by the power and grace of "Transcendence". It was a beautiful mistake and is still one of my favorite albums of all time. It's hard to believe that the album is over 15 years old now and still as relevant and powerful as it was then. I honestly still get chills every time I listen to "In Dark Places". My interest in music has changed and evolved as I have aged, but "Transcendence" will forever be an ageless treasure.

In dark places... we find a shimmering prog metal gem.......2004-08-14

Transcendence (1988). Crimson Glory's second studio album.

While progressive rock has been around for quite some time, progressive metal actually didn't really start to take off until the mid-80s when bands like Queensryche, Fates Warning, and Crimson Glory arrived on the scene. All three of these bands could've easily taken the 80s hair metal path that was all the rage during that time, but instead opted to make the wise choice and sign themselves to lesser known labels, thus enabling them to have more control over their music production and develop as music artists. This was years before prog metal bands like Dream Theater entered the scene, resulting in the genre literally EXPLODING with many bands throughout the 90s. Queensryche started off well with The Warning(1984) and Rage For Order(1986), while Fates Warning had the awesome The Spectre Within(1985) and Awakening The Guardian(1986). Crimson Glory also started strong with their debut album(1987), but unfortunately the band didn't have nearly as long of a career as their peers, and they broke up after their third album.

But in between the debut and their breakup album, Crimson Glory managed to release an OVERLOOKED 80s PROG METAL MASTERPIECE. Though they never achieved the popularity that Queensryche had received, they did acquire a massive cult following with Transcendence. This is one of those albums that I'd been wanting to get for a long time, but kept putting it off for a year in favor of other things, and now that I have it, I wish I'd bought it sooner! As a little insight on how I found this album, I first heard their music from the song samples on their website, and repeatedly played them again and again because they sounded so good. Well, I finally listened to the actual album and at first it sounded different from what I was used to, but then I realized that the sound clips WERE JUST DEMO OUTTAKES! This was a pleasant surprise to me because the finished album sounds even better than those clips. Anyways, Crimson Glory's sound falls between Iron Maiden and the aforementioned Queensryche and Fates Warning. The lead vocalist "Midnight" pulls off the singing in a very Geoff Tate-esque vocal style, but he does it very well, so I'm not complaining. Guitarists Jon Drenning and Ben Jackson make a suitable lead pair and generate lots of Maiden-like melodies. Bassist Jeff Lords and drummer Dana Burnell play their parts respectably too. Judging by the band's photos, you'd think that the bandmembers were just a bunch of hair metal guys, but the poofy hair and facepaint conceals the fact that underneath they actually write some great song lyrics about topics other than partying and girls.

Crimson Glory doesn't really try anything too over-the-top with their music and they aren't exactly the most talented players in their league. Perhaps my 5 star ranking of the album comes from the fact that on Transcendence the band KNOWS how to write excellent memorable songs. What we have here are 10 filler-free tracks of pure 80s-brand prog metal. 'Lady Of Winter' kicks things off, sounding much like early Queensryche. 'Painted Skies' and 'Burning Bridges' are the album's gloomy ballads, and they are quite good to boot. 'Where Dragons Rule' and 'Eternal World' are pulse pounding rockers that are catchy as well as technically proficient. My favorite tracks are the blazing 'Red Sharks' and 'Masque Of Red Death' as well as the grand epic 'In Dark Places'. The title track is sort of a haunting accoustic number that rounds off the album nicely.

Standout tracks: Red Sharks, Masque Of The Red Death, In Dark Places

All in all, Transcendence is a fine album and much better than I expected it to be. Honestly, I can't see any fan of early Queensryche and Fates Warning being disappointed at all with this album. It captures the band in its brief prime, just before fading away into obscurity. They did reunite briefly in 1998 with the album Astronomica, but without vocalist Midnight the band could never be what it once was. Though Transcendence doesn't quite top Queensryche's Rage For Order or Dream Theater's Images & Words(1992) as my favorite prog metal albums, it definitely ranks up there close enough. It certainly belongs in every metal collection. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Other similar albums:
-'Awakening The Guardian' by Fates Warning
-'The Warning' by Queensryche
-'Dimmension Hatross' by Voivod
-'Powerslave' by Iron Maiden

Perfection.......2003-09-26

Midnight is the greatest Heavy Metal vocalist ever. Apart from that, the music on this album really sets this class act apart from the seemingly millions of boring power metal bands around. The album has great power rockers like "Red Sharks" but it is the slower, more heart felt songs that really steal the show. "Painted Skies" and the title track are examples of how a Heavy Metal band can make Ballads that would make hair bands cry. All in all, the unique voice will have you hypnotized, rewinding over and over again those seemingly impossible falsettos. Crimson Glory is light years ahead than any other Power Metal band on the planet. You will love this album.

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