Transcendence

This is the second album by a Florida five-piece, from the years they appeared on stage in masks. It was recorded at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, produced by Jim Morris and Tom Morris, and released in 1988 by MCA Records, with Roadracer handling Europe. The line-up is Midnight on vocals, Jon Drenning on lead guitar, Ben Jackson on rhythm guitar, Jeff Lords on bass and Dana Burnell on drums. The drums were sampled into a Synclavier without cymbals and the cymbals recorded separately afterwards, which is where the separation between the instruments comes from. Midnight's high register and two guitars moving in counterpoint are what set the band apart within American progressive and power metal. The sleeve was painted by Takashi Terada; the runic letters laid over a Kabbalistic Tree of Life on the back decode into a message. The running order here is the original's as printed.