Vanden Plas at their best are as good as anyone in the Power Prog Metal game.
Andy Kuntz has one of the best voices in the business, combining tweeter-rattling power with a Rick Davies (Supertramp) vulnerability. At times, it sounds like he’s borrowing Kai Hansen’s vocal cords from early Gamma Ray albums, but he’s mostly his own performer. Every instrument struts and shines with great chord progressions and note selections, including the guest strings touches.

Many of the songs sound like they were started on the piano. The chord changes and instrumental corridors between parts are wondrous, and they are expertly timed and laid out to build back to the magnific vocal verses and choruses.
Highlights: “Fatal Arcadia,” “The Ouroboros.”
Vanden Plas are often categorized as Prog Metal, but I think they’re closer to Savatage, Gamma Ray, and Helloween than they are to Dream Theater and Symphony X.
In full disclosure, I struggled with part 1 of this album duo. The first “Ghost Experiment” record was fine (“The Ghost Experiment - Awakening”), but it didn’t grab me. On “The Ghost Experiment - Illumination,” I feel positively fondled. Many of these songs will remain with me, and I will return for many repeat listens. Vanden Plas’s prior 2-album story was much the same. The first “Chronicles of the Immortals” record was decent, but “Chronicles of the Immortals part II” is a masterwork (I listed it among the best albums of the decade). “The Ghost Experiment - Illumination” is good enough that it makes me want to relisten to part 1 again, to see if I somehow missed something.
Can I make one more confession? I don’t follow the stories and concepts of their albums as closely as I should. There are lyrical glimpses of vampires, undead, and dark magics. . . I get that there are these massive, album-spanning story arcs, but I’m often too caught up in the wonder of the music to follow the characters and plot. Maybe if I rectify this and dive into the lyrics, I’ll appreciate their good albums even more.