MICHAEL ROMEO War Of The Worlds, Pt. 2 | Weekly Heavy Metal Album Review

Released by InsideOut Music on March 25th, 2022

Quick Background

The legendary guitarist and main song writer of Symphony X (SX), brings his second solo album 4 years after releasing War Of The Worlds, Pt. 1. This debut is a masterpiece of power progressive symphonic metal, it was ranked number 3 in my 2018 ranking. I'm a massive SX fan and probably a bit biased in favor of any music coming from Romeo. 

War Of The Worlds, Pt. 2

As with the debut, Pt 2 big difference to SX (besides the vocals, but I'll get to that later) is the intense use of symphonic passages with a filmscore vibe to it. The album features 11 songs in 55 minutes. There's an instrumental intro and outro. The album follows the theme from part 1, "H.G. Wells with modern-day sci-fi.” Wells is sometimes called the "father of science fiction" and wrote a book with the same title. The bulk of the album was written at the same time as part 1. But there are some differences with the final result. For starters there's a new singer. Dino Jelusick, a Croatian rock singer, musician, and songwriter. He is the founder, principal songwriter, and lead singer of progressive rock band Animal Drive. I first heard Dino in two songs from 2020's Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall We Are the Night. And I was already impressed. He sounds a lot like Russell Allen so no surprise Romeo liked him, but there's also a strong Coverdale feel in Dino's voice. This gives the album a little bit more hard rock feeling compared to the heavier Part 1. The rhythmic section remains the same – drummer John Macaluso and bassist John DeServio. 

"Introduction, Pt. 2" opens the album in similar way as part 1, it sets the scene for an album with a lot of symphonic elements influenced by great film score composers such as John Williams and Hans Zimmer. Other cinematic instrumentals are "Mothership", "Hunted"  and  "Brave New World (Outro)". 

"Divide & Conquer" which was the first single and "Destroyer" are some of the heaviest tracks with strong SX V: The New Mythology Suite era sound specially due to Dino sounding like Allen particulary in those tracks. Since SX V is an amazing album, I am totally cool with it. Another heavy one is "Parasite" which even sounds like Pantera during the verses. "Destroyer" is actually a special song as it's the first time Romeo wrote and played a song on a 7-String guitar. It also has a middle-eastern flavor as Romeo experiment with a Saz (Turkish string instrument). "Metamorphosis" is a cool melodic prog song with an intro that reminds me of Dream Theater and verses that sound like a very heavy Whitesnake. "Hybrids" is my favorite song on the album and I love the guitar solo. On that note, of course all over the album the guitarwork is fantastic with jaw dropping solos, cool riffs but also nice arpeggios and slower parts. "Maschinenmensch" is the longest song on the album with about 9 min and a lot of room to go to different places. Keyboards, symphonic arrangements and another cool solo, this is as proggy as you can get in this album.

The Picky Guy

I have the impression that Part 1 was heavier and overall a little bit stronger. But there are no bad songs here, maybe "Just Before the Dawn" gets a bit too much into ballad territory and it's my least favorite song on the album. But by no means bad.

Wrap Up Opinion 

As in Part 1, War Of The Worlds, Pt. 2 features a lot of super-heavy cinematic music and, obviously, lots of guitars to impress any seasoned player or prog metal fan. Musicianship is superb and the new singer Dino brought a lot of power to this album. The arrangements on this album are great, there's a lot happening and the symphonic parts are truly impressive. A very good album, 82/100, recommended for SX fans, prog metal in general and certainly if you liked part 1.  

SCORE: 82/100

Genre: Progressive Metal

Released by InsideOut Music on March 25th, 2022

Rating System

99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad

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