NEW HORIZONS are a progressive metal, based out of Italy, formed in November 2013. This is their first album entitled "Inner Dislocation", where the mixing was done at Seven7Studio, and the work was mastered at Domination Studio by Simone Mularoni (guitarist of DGM). The albums covers 9 songs and clocks in at 51:43.

The opener "Introspective" is just that a very introspective intro, a nice piano element and some spacy effects. Serves its purpose as the lead into "Inner Dislocation", which has some nice punch on the synths (think ROYAL HUNT), it is filled with a lot of different keyboard atmospheres, and is a perfect segue into "Where Is the End", which shows much more technical aspects, especially in the drums and the guitars. They keyboards are much louder and fit the song perfectly. The choruses sung by Oscar Nini and Federico Viviani remind me a bit of ANDROMEDA. Oscar shows off his pipes here and definitely has an interesting range. In some areas, he sounds a bit like Tommy Karevik (KAMELOT, SEVENTH WONDER).

This leads us to "Born in the Future", has a nice calm piano intro (a common theme throughout the album). The guitar patterns are extremely well executed here, and at times are much slower and doomier, a very nice touch. We even get a dash of death metal vocals in the background, some sci-fi effects in the main clean vocals and the overall feel of this song is a bit like "Just Let Me Breathe" from DREAM THEATER. "Inhuman Wrath" follows suite with some powerful riffing and some really fancy scaling on the guitars. One of my favorite tracks on the album.

"Evolution" is an instrumental where everyone shines, the technical prowess of the band as a whole takes center stage and I heavily enjoyed the flow of the song. The symbiosis between keyboards and guitars is amazing so there is a lot to indulge in here.

We then have a 2-part masterpiece called "Borderlands" which contains some groovy bass lines, simple yet effective drumming and some pristine sounding acoustics. In part one, the vocals are much more mellow, along the lines of Lawrence Gowan, but in part two, he hear some of the highest notes of the albums, and they are pulled off very nicely. The guitars are sometimes "muffled" for added effect and it really works well in this context. Some added choirs are also included here near the end of the track, another nice transition.

Last, but not least, we have "The Trail of Shadows", the longest piece of music, with a lot of dual guitar harmonies, majestic piano parts and even if there is complexity, it never gets out of proportion. The chorus here is one of the strongest of the entire album, making it my favorite because even an hour after listening to the album, it was still "etched" into my brain.

Overall, this is a very well contained progressive metal effort. In a genre where it is difficult to stand out, they have a carved their own niche and provide something fans of bands like SEVENTH WONDER and VOYAGER should enjoy!