A fantastic debut. During all Reality Divine's running time, FOOL'S GAME unfurl talent and a great sense of well-being, creating something like a spider's web around you that unlocks and absorbs your mind.
The band started as a project by the ex-guitarist of DIVISION Matt Crooks who wanted to create something new. Matt Johnsen from PHARAOH was the first that joined forces, followed by the charismatic MANTICORA Danish singer Lars F. Larsen, the groundbreaking drummer John Macaluso (ex-Y. Malmsteen, ex-ARK) and also the keyboard player Nick Van Dyk from REDEMPTION.
Despite their young age as a band - or if you wish the musical diversity that each member carries - we have a perfect, solid and sturdy sum. FOOL'S GAME plays what many people call Progressive/Power Metal. Indeed, they have progressive elements, not in an anti-conventional way for a composition's development but for the special touch of their partial pieces inside their songs. Following this, I must add the exemplary rhythm section. Inflective, proving a rich background for all their ideas plus bringing perspectives to the light that would be lost if there was a more simple playing. The power side of the band comes with a plethora of heavy riffing (somewhere close to an ICED EARTH thing) or from the many IRON MAIDEN based guitars that you will find dispersed in all the album's length. Lars F. Larsen's vocals hold the BLIND GUARDIAN timbre or MANTICORA thing but, believe me, here we have something unique. A great dynamic, while the perfect melodic lines create soul euphoria. Some refrains, for example in Mass Pyschosis, When The Beginning Meets The End etc - have this divine feel that few bands can write, especially nowadays. My mind goes to SHADOW GALLERY, JACOB'S DREAM or CRIMSON GLORY. I don't know if they are influenced by these bands but every time I hear this stuff these images are coming easily. To end with the vocals, he is so good that in the first song - in a part of it, to be more precise - Lars makes some manoeuvres close to the god, Harry Conklin.
In any aspect, Divine Reality comes like a bomb to our ears. The brisk, with pauses, basic themes will be pleasant for friends of KAMELOT; the whole style is moving parallel with PHARAOH while the solos are absolutely amazing, flowing naturally and are, I can say, disarming to the point. Nick Van Dyk knows when exactly to enter; bringing a progressive, the most important thing is that his playing has meaning. FOOL'S GAME are like a pentagon. Each of the members shines separately with great prowess in the instruments, without engulfing the other. The result is like a rock, despite that all the components are easy to be distinguished.
A lot of well-known bands would offer their blood for some of these songs inside. Mass Pyschosis is the perfect opener, the kind of song that you listen around five times in the beginning before you continue with the rest. Tim Aymar is doing some guest vocals in the Conqueror Worm which is an epic diamond. All the tracks here are perfect. Listen and see for yourself. Only the last two are a level behind, cause of their refrains. Also, I didn't like some Death Metal vocals - no they are not too much - but in songs like Mass Pyschosis I could not say that they are offering something special.     
FOOL'S GAME and their lyric, melodic, inebriant music are placed on top for anyone who is inside this style. The thing is that their music is underground for today's Metal scene's trends but there were and there will always be some Metal warriors who will play their stuff, creating songs from their heart, isn't it so?