Anyone remember the Italian prog band Black Jester??? Yeah, the techincally superb-skilled progressive metal act with the horrible vocalist!!! Alex “The Jester” D’Este sang like shit, let’s be honest, and his vocal-style pulled down an otherwise brilliant band - no feeling, no register, not able to sing in key and absolutely no idea of the english language and pronounciation! Luckily the band have now fired him and taken on a new vocalist, Alessandro Secchi. Well, Alessandro IS a better vocalist, no doubt about that, but unfortunately also Alessandro has his share of problems with the english pronounciation, something which tends to get on ones nerves while listening to this album. That “minor” problem aside, Moonlight Circus is one great progressive metal act - one of those who dares be original, yet at the same time focuses a lot of melodies and all that “stuff” that makes me smile *SS* “Outskirts Of Reality” is an album filled with technical flairs, melodic choruses, superb solos and interesting rhythms - here and there akin to Dream Theater, but luckily with a lot more originality than most of the DT-clones out there today. Hints of jazz, hints of prog-rock and hints of symphonic rock sneaks in the melting pot and creates one of those albums I’d personally like to hear again and again … at least, if it wasn’t for the irritating accent of the vocalist.