The U.S. Prog-Metal band WORLDVIEW features talent from many well-known acts such as SACRED WARRIOR and VENGANCE RISING - and you can tell right from the start.

I'll start with the whole: the band's debut album "The Chosen Few" features excellent musicianship of all sorts: great interesting riffs, cool solos, cool musical idea, sing-along choruses, intricate passages... the works. All of it very melodic and very pleasing to the ear, although it might be slightly too soft for those whose eardrums turned to leather long ago from constant blast-beat extreme metal (but if you fit that description, what the hell are you doing listening to melodic prog-metal?)... Think of a modern-day "Empire"-era QUEENSRYCHE.

Definitely great and very fun to listen to, the album touches many musical ideas and influences from all over (ARALLU, IN FLAMES and many more). This is mostly a good thing, although sometimes the changes in vibe are so extreme in range and that it goes from being interesting and diverse to feeling slightly (for lack of a better word) non-canon (insert artillery joke here).

Give ya a f'rinstance, the album starts off with a very nice middle-eastern-sounding part that's really nice and starts you off with a great vibe. Great sound and fun to listen to (even though the vocalist's voice seems a bit out of place in the casba-vibe of the song) - but that vibe never repeats itself throughout the record, making it cool but slightly puzzling for the listener.

Apart from the talent of the band members themselves, the album bears a long (but distinguished) list of guest performers. Unlike my complaint of before, these guest appearances of instruments not common for the entire work feels natural and adds dimensions to an already complex and beautiful piece of work.

Over multiple listening, I've found myself drawn to different aspects of the work every time. A very cool album - but most of all, to me, it's a promise of greater things to come.