In response to my ’ So if you ever need a hand doing reviews’ comment, Jackie hands me half a foot of cd’ s the next day; some got listened to right away, some got stared at, and some impressed the hell out of me. One of the ones in that last category was Symphony X’ s newest outing, ’ The Odyssey’ . The first minute of the album pulls you in with one of the best guitar intros I’ ve heard in a good long while. Just as you start to sink into the swing of things Russell Allen’ s voice snaps you to attention and stuns you with an incredible range; low gutteral shouts, ear splitting wails, and harmony that balances with the rest of music perfectly. The album is laid out beautifully as well; the songs don’ t seem disjointed as so many albums nowadays seem to be. stunning guitar and drum work melds with some unique keyboard work and classical instrumentation. This album is easily one of those guilty pleasure metal albums; the sort you blast in your car, but pretend you aren’ t listening to. Lyrically there are some standards, bordering on pretentiousness at points, but that’ s why it’ s good. Throughout you can see the theme of ’ The Odyssey’ , mythical people and places throughout. Of course the truly impressive piece on the album is ’ The Odyssey’ itself, a 24 minute plus song that starts off with full orchestral arrangement. It almost seems out of place at first, far to close to traditional classical music, but the band’ s roots show through soon enough. Any band that can put together an epic like this had to be fully confident in what they do and willing to go out on a limb; and Symphony X pulls it off splendidly. I’ d wholly recommend the album to anyone who likes a good metal album, and can appreciate the skill that goes into something like this.