Zero Hour
Dark Deceiver

November 2008
Released: 2008, Sensory/Lasers Edge/Intromental
Rating: 3.5/5
Reviewer: Anders Sandvall

Zero Hour is led by the Tipton brothers. The band has toured heavily and the band played at Progpower USA for the third time a few years ago. The band plays technical, progressive and complex metal. It is not so strange that the band have played at ProgPower a few times. Even though the music is complex, fast and technical it’s sometimes also dark and a little gloomy. Guitarist Tipton creates magic and his work fits perfectly together with the voice of lead singer Salinas. Salinas has an amazing voice and varied between singing in a more ordinary way and sometimes squeezing in screams a la Rob Halford. Zero Hour has musical parallels with bands like Queensryche, Watchtower, Spiral Architect and Dream Theater to mention a few of the more well known names in this genre.



It takes to much space to describe the songs, you have to believe me when I say think of Dream Theater and such bands and then you’ll get the picture of what Zero Hour’s songs sounds like. I think the album is really great to listen to in a normal amount and there’s isn’t really anything to argue about here. Nice songs, a solid production, skilled members and even material make DARK DECEIVER a great album that will appeal to every prog rock/metal fan.



http://www.intromental.com

Zero Hour
Dark Deceiver

August 2008
Released: 2008, Laser's Edge
Rating: 3.0/5
Reviewer: Waspman

I stand saddened and disbelieving at the loss of a musical great. Back in 2001 I stumbled across a massive album called THE TOWERS OF AVARICE by a then-unknown band called Zero Hour. A work of towering (sorry, I couldn’t resist) progressive metal genius, the album helped open my eyes to more progressive metal and is still a personal favourite of mine. Sadly, I lost touch with the creative Californians, and missed out on their next three albums. So I was quite excited at the prospect of reviewing DARK DECEIVER and reconnecting with the band.

Unfortunately, DARK DECEIVER is an album almost impossible to connect with. “Power to Believe” opens the album impressively with some truly heavy progressive riffery and powerful vocals from ex-Power of Omens vocalist Chris Salinas. The following title track is also an excellent prog-metal specimen, showing that the band has indeed learned much over the years. From there however, the band just becomes downright obtuse and hard to listen to. I mean, Zero Hour has always been a demanding musical experience, but it feels like they’ve taken it a bit too far on this album. Besides which, I can’t stand wankery like “Tendonitis”.

I appreciate the obvious talent of the band – there are few bands that could pull off this stuff – but I miss the complex but still communicative songs of yesteryear. Gotta give the guys credit though – most bands mellow out and become more accessible as time goes by, but DARK DECEIVER proves that this is not happening to Zero Hour. They are marching to their own beat, so more power to them.

For serious prog-heads, this is an easy 4.5/5, but I just can’t get into it.