Last summer I started tuning into Delicious AgonyProgressive Rock Radio Internet station every time I would sit down at my computer to write these reviews or do some surfing. I REALLY started getting into progressive-rock a lot more around 1992, after being blown away by Dream Theater's Images And Words album, whose "Pull Me Under" actually got a little radio and MTV exposure back then. Figure the odds now a days. In the last few years I have been discovering a wealth of fantastic new prog-rock music thanks to great sites like Delicious Agony, and the many great music review sites on the web. Echolyn are one of those bands that I have been introduced to recently. I consider them new, but they have actually been around since 1990 and have released seven studio albums. So why have I never heard of them until just last year? The likes of Ashley Simpson, Limp Bizkit, and Ludacris - that's the hell why!

Since I have been able to listen to damn near all of their songs for free the last few months, thanks to Internet radio and the many free MP3 downloads Echolyn offers on their website, I figured I owed it to them to pick up their new concert DVD - even though it cost me a whopping 35 bucks! Stars And Gardens Volume 4 (there are no volumes 1-3, by the way) is a lofty two-disk package with a total running time of about 210 minutes. Theconcert portion alone runs a little over two hours, helped in part by theirperformance of the entire 49-minute "Mei", from their most recentalbum of the same name.

I was excited about watching this DVD, because it was thrilling to stumble upon such a good band, with so many fantastic songs, that I had no idea existed until only last year. The concert footage was filmed May 25th, 2003, at the Sellersville Theater in their home state of Pennsylvania, and features 11 songs that span their entire career. Unfortunately, right from the very first song, I knew all was not going to be well with the production of this DVD. Most of the production duties were handled by Echolyn guitarist and vocalist Brett Kull. The video editing literally looks like Kull and his helpers were sitting around in the studio, and after having indulged in some really good LSD said, (imagine Tommy Chong's Cheech and Chong voice) "hey man, why don't we add all kinds of trippy, psychedelic video affects over all of the song performances - yeaaahh, people will really dig that man." Of course I'm only kidding when I imply that these guys had to be on drugs to produce this outcome - of course - but I'm afraid it is that bad.