Soul Secret - Flowing Portraits 9/10

By Tam Laird

This is a debut release from Italian prog metal band Soul Secret. What is it with prog metal bands from Italy? They are all of a high standard and know how to produce great sounding music. This band is no different.

The band comprises of Mark Basile(ex-Mind Key) – Vocals, Antony Vittozzi – Guitar, Lucio Grilli – Bass, Luca Di Gennaro – Keyboards and Antonio Mocerino – Drums. They have certainly concocted a potent mix of metal, prog, symphonic, and acoustic moments that blend so well together. There are six songs on the CD totaling 60 minutes. They state their influences as Dream Theater and a host of other bands in that genre. One thing they have managed to do is to release a truly great debut CD. They even have Karl Groom onboard mastering the album. If I had a progressive metal band, I would want him to do the mastering as well, and maybe the producing, if I could afford him.

So does it sound like Dream Theater? Well maybe but then again maybe not. I guess it is a personal preference if you liken one band to another; one man’s meat is another man’s poison so they say.

I really like the sound on this CD, from the opening track to the closing track it is rich in truly metal guitar riffs, and great keyboards. It is not all vocal with great musical passages throughout the whole album. There is also a nice prog sound at places in the music. It has a big sound, with nice symphonic rock sounds. The vocals of Mark Basile are also excellent and suit this genre of music so well.

One piece of information is that the bands main composer and singer, Michele Serpico doesn’t actually sing on the CD.

Getting back to the music, the track that really stands out for me is the last track on the CD, “Tears Of Kalliroe”. It really is an excellent piece of music, which is over 16 minutes long. It has a great experimental sound at the start which goes into a big symphonic sound that fades away after about 3 minutes at which there are many time changes between keys and guitars before going into nice melodic metal. It is a well-constructed track and a fitting end to a great debut album.

This band has a great future in front of them, and their own sound will develop even further with future releases, of that there is no doubt.

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