Dreamy yet edgy, Shadowland is prog rock with more emphasis on the second part of that genre name than the first. The title track is the most "progressive" one on the album, taking you on an extensive musical journey, starting with a cool atmospheric opening, and going through lots of rhythmic and stylistic turns, switching from one to the next smoothly (maybe a little too smoothly), maintaining great cohesiveness the whole time. Almost as complex, "Enemy in Me" rocks a little harder and, like many tracks on this album, makes good use of effects. The rest of the songs are much simpler than these two, more reminiscent of '70's and early '80's mainstream rock than prog, with occasional ("Alive" and "Troublemaker") hints of disco. There are echoes of Van Halen and Blue Oyster Cult (during the latter's lets-get-more-radio-friendly period), and some tracks sound disturbingly like something Barry Manilow would cover.

Fortunately, Lee Z's lead singer, Peter Pauliks, bears little resemblance to Mr. Manilow. Pauliks has made an obvious effort to inject his vocals with a (welcome) degree of toughness that I don't normally associate with this genre, his technique mostly consisting of placing extra emphasis on particular syllables or words. The drawback is that this makes him sound affected or overly dramatic at times, and as a result, his singing accentuates what in my view is the album's biggest flaw: weak lyrics. This isn't simply a lack of brilliance or cleverness; it is a level of melodrama, triteness, and in some cases outright inanity that I find impossible to ignore. Sometimes an individual line induces cringes, like the cry "Time, you thief!" that forms the inauspicious first line of "Save Me." In other cases Lee Z's excessive dedication to rhyming creates couplets which have no real distinctiveness other than sound-matching. But even when they settle for an off-rhyme, the results can be unfortunate, as in the chorus of "Troublemaker": "Life's a troublemaker. / It's like an elevator." Again, the theatrical delivery and musical setting have a lot to do with how the lyrics are heard; under different circumstances, lines like these might even be charming.

Not all of the lyrics are quite this dreadful, and if you can get past those that are, there is much to enjoy in Shadowland: good guitarwork, effective song-sequencing, catchy choruses, and enough progressive elements to keep things interesting, though not enough, perhaps, for all fans of the genre.

written by Maud

Playing time: 47.00