Psyopus - Ideas Of Reference
2004 Black Market Activities

Track Listing:
1.  Mork And Mindy (Daydream Lover)
2.  The White Light
3.  Death, I...
4.  The Long Road To The Fourth Dimension
5.  Mannequin
6.  Mirrorrim
7.  Imogen's Puzzle
8.  Anomaly
9.  Bones to Dust

Line-Up:
Vocals:  Adam Frappoli
Guitars:  Christopher Arp
Bass:  Fred Decoste
Drums:  Greg Herman

Website:  www.psyopus.com

Lamp's Rating:  A
Overall Rating:  A

Lamp's Review:
Out of Rochester, NY, Psyopus come full fledged with this release.  You may be looking at the track listing and thinking, "Only nine songs on a full length release?".  But one listen will make it obvious why there are only nine songs:  They are all incredibly well orchestrated with several different parts to all of them.

The guitar on this recording is unmatched anywhere in tech metal.  Think if you were to combine Dillenger Escape Plan with G3 and add dissonant jazz chords in spots.  There are even a couple bits of classical played in this album (Imogen's Puzzle and the first 50 seconds or so of Death, I...).  The bass lines are played along a similarly advanced line of technicality and always seem to fit with the guitar.  The drumming is actually less complex than one would think; the odd time signatures don't seem to appear so much in this album as with other tech metal releases, but maybe it just seems that way because Greg is often playing blast beats over them.  Said beats are somewhat overused on this CD, but they help add to the intensity and it takes some serious stamina to play them for so long.

Adam Frappoli is all over the place vocally.  His voice doesn't really have any of that deep booming resonance, it is not a particularly powerful voice, but his screams fit the music well especially since with only one guitarist, the overall sound of Psyopus is thinner sounding than your average tech metal band anyway.  I often find riffs from this release stuck in my head.  For a final word, the backwards letters on the back of the CD case used for Mirrorrim are cool.
Lamp's Rating:  A