• New Music Reviews
• |
• Archives
• |
• News
• |
• Submissions
• |
• About
• |
• 
• |
• 

May 2025

• The Flower Kings: Love
• Maestrick : Espresso Della Vita: Lunare

March 2025

• W.E.T.: Apex
• Alliance: Before Our Eyes
• Ginevra: Beyond Tomorrow
• Phil X & The Drills:
  Pow! Right In The Kisser
• IQ: Dominion
• Heart Line: Falling Heaven
• Gotthard: Stereo Crush
• Defender: Dying To Live
• Streetlight: Night Vision

February 2025

• Robin McAuley: Soulbound
• Perfect Plan: Heart Of A Lion
• Craig Brooks: Desolation Freeway
• Mantric Momentum: Alienized
• Pattern-Seeking Animals: Friend Of All Creatures
• Crazy Lixx: Thrill Of The Bite
• Ginger Evil: The Way It Burns
• Dream Theater: Parasomnia
• Tyran: Tyran's Oath
• Saber: Lost In Flames

January 2025

• Wildness: Avenger
• The Ferrymen: Iron Will
• Labyrinth: In The Vanishing Echoes Of Goodbye
• Bonfire: Higher Ground
• The Big Deal: Electrified
• Landfall: Wide Open Sky

December 2024

• After Lapse: Pathways
• Illusion Force: Halfana
• Powell-Payne: Voilá

November 2024

• Sunstorm: Restless Fight
• Storace: Crossfire
• Voodoo Circle: Hail To The King
• Lionville: Supernatural
• Starchaser: Into The Great Unkown
• Empires Of Eden: Guardians Of Time
• Lonerider: Down In The Dust
• Seventh Crystal: Entity
• Neal Morse & The Resonance: No Hill For A Climber
• Beardfish: Songs For Beating Hearts
• Impellitteri: War Machine
• Brothers Of Metal: Fimbulvinter

[ More Music Reviews ]

The Oneira: Injection

Melodic Progressive Rock

4.0/5.0

Internet Facebook
Rockshots Records
Words: Craig Hartranft
Added: 25.03.2020 | Released: 13.03.2020

Launched some ten years ago and led by Greek musician and composer Filippos Gougoumis, The Oneira features a multinational cast including Gianpaolo "Banjo" Begnoni on keyboards and Danilo "Sakko" Saccotelli on drums. After a long six year absence, the band returns with their third album, Injection which features Manuel Ruscigno as The Oneira's permanent lead vocalist.

The Oneira

As a melodic progressive rock band, The Oneira's songs are equally dense and intricate in composition thanks to spry guitar work, lush keyboard parts, rhythmic expansive drumming, and then adding Ruscigno's smooth and melodic vocal style lingering large over all arrangements.

To expand on this a little more, Gougoumis, in his guitar parts, balances rhythmic, harmonious riffs with soaring Gilmour-like solos, which are everywhere, ambitious, and a delight to enjoy. That is when he's not fending off or tag teaming with a Begnoni keyboard solo, with Paint Your Soul offering a fine example. Begnoni also adds to the melody of many songs by dropping in lilting piano line as within Behind The Sun or Paint Your Soul. For his part, Saccotelli is an impressive drummer who can offer subtle gentleness (Edipsos) or Peart-like percussion (Still Free To Choose) or be simply heavy and raging as within the latter half of Know That Feeling or the larger part of Make My Day.

Even with all this impressive musical activity, The Oneira never lose sight of the importance using song melody, vocal harmony, or a lyrical twist to make the musical complexity accessible to the listener. All said, The Oneira's Injection offers the listener a complex and intriguing, yet accessible and enjoyable, album of modern melodic progressive rock. Recommended.

Note: All Amazon advertising in this review first benefits the artist, then Craig Hartranft also receives a residual. Click, and thanks for your support.

The Oneira's Injection offers the listener a complex and intriguing, yet accessible and enjoyable, album of modern melodic progressive rock. Recommended.

Alphabetical Index

Here's a fun fact about Swiss legends, Gotthard: their last 16 releases, excepting their debut album, went to number one in their home country, making them one of Switzerland's most successful acts and ... [ Read More ]