This 2008 release was the fourth album by Polish act Osada Vida, but is viewed by many as their second as the first two were locally released affairs that weren’t heard internationally. What we have here is a prog act that often moves into much heavier and darker waters, but although it could be called ‘prog metal’ it is a long way from the class and diversity of bands such as Dream Theater or Threshold. There are times when the album is quite laboured and also the sound is often muddied and not nearly as clear as it should be. For a band that had been releasing music for eight years at this point, I was somewhat surprised as it sounded much more like the outpouring of a band that had yet to find their feet and were throwing lots of different things into the mix in the hope that it would somehow come to fruition.
There are definitely some interesting ideas and constructs, but they somehow fail to be pulled together in a way to make them appealing. The end result is the idea that this is a work in progress and that the band had yet to decide what they really wanted to do and how they were going to achieve it.
www.osadavida.art.pl
