Transcendence

Crimson Glory tried to stand apart from Queensryche by wearing silver masks on stage, but considering that their second album sounds like a lost post-The Warning ‘Ryche record and vocalist Midnight’s mile-high shriek bears an uncanny resemblance to Geoff Tate’s, it’s hard not to make the comparison. Transcendence is still one of the finest prog metal efforts of the late eighties. Funnily enough, it’s not actually that “progressive” in the musical sense — it’s just the similarities to Queensryche that get it tagged that way. Time signature changes or not, it rules as much as the dragons in “Where Dragons Rule.” “Lady of Winter” gets things off to an appropriately thrashy start, “Masque of the Red Death” envisions the Poe tale as a “Powerslave”-style epic, and “Lonely” brings the monster ballad thunder. The cover is the Japanese poster art for Lifeforce, which tells you a lot of what you need to know.