Man on Fire's second album, the Undefined Design, brings new life to the progressive rock genre... Most of the new progressive rock artists follow in Dream Theater's footsteps by sounding exactly like them. Fortunately Man on Fire has their own distinct, unique style. They combine different styles in their music, but they're still able to maintain solid wholeness. Their music contains melodic vocals, fretless bass, multi-layered keyboards creating different soundscapes, polyrhythms, heavy guitars and some catchy hooklines. They have incorporated even some technoish parts to their songs. Their self-titled debut CD (which I haven't heard) was released back in 1998.

Song material on this album is varying — everything from softer rock to heavier metal is covered. One of Man on Fire's strengths is quality of songs... there aren't any vain, unnecesary songs. On this album the band is supported by some additional pro musicians to add breadth to their sound and enrich their music. For example, three songs feature the violin work of David Ragsdale (Kansas, Smashing Pumpkins).

Production is very good... only complaints regard some of the higher pitched samples and noise... The noise could be heard, for example, on Two Views' guitar parts — apparently the guitar wasn't correctly noise gated (and it had too much distortion)... I could also heard some clicks which may have occurred because of clipping (maybe the famed mastering engineer Rodney Mills have mastered it too loud). Other than that, production is first class.

The Undefined Design is a very good, refreshing progressive metal album... If you're open minded progrock listener searching for new, creative music, I recommend you to check out Man on Fire. Once again I advice you to navigate to ProgRock Records' website so you'll be able to form your own opinion about Man on Fire.

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- MAGE (04.08.2004)

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LINE-UP:
Hodges, Jeff: Vocals, Keyboards, Samples, Loops Sands, Eric: Fretless And Fretted Bass, Guitars with Carroll, Steve: Lyrics, Esoterics Special Guests: Ragsdale, David: Violin on Tracks 5, 9 & 12 Smith, David: Drums & Percussion on Tracks 1, 2, 3, 4 & 7 Mouton, Jimmy: Drums on Tracks 5, 6, 8, 9 & 12 Stoker, Adam: Drums on Track 10 Howell, Trish: Backing Vocals on Track 2
Producer:	Hodges, Jeff
Mixing by:	Hodges, Jeff
Mastering by:	Mills, Rodney

	TRACKLIST:
	01. Awake: Prayer in the Moonlight 02. Awake: Bitter Tears Burning 03. Awake: Ascension 04. Seven Thunders Wide 05. Where is the Light? 06. Entertaining Angels 07. Great Divide 08. Inside of the Circle 09. Clouds in the Sun 10. Wasted Time 11. Two Views 12. Just Out of Reach