Enchant is another band that comes to mind, excellent vocals, but their compositional skills and playing ability are not the level of Threshold or DT, (but then again, whose are?). They play competantly enough, they do have some killer songs; the album Tug Of War is superb. I've heard the album Break, which came out just before TOW, and I thought it was formulaic pablum - the melodies were there, but it was like they trying too hard - too emo. Tug Of War has some great stuff on it for an album that few ever heard, but it is very 80s Kansas, with the lead singer sounding like a dead ringer for a young Steve Walsh at times. I like it. They make the same mistakes other clueless retro bands make, like naming their obligatory instrumental-work-out song, Progtology (still a good song though). When others hear it, they're sure its a 20 year old CD I'm listening to, not one that came out in 2003. They just sort of fell off the map after that.

FA - Tug Of War is the album that Cryptic Vision keeps trying to put out.

I've herad a few Arena albums and wasn't overly impressed; the name of the band says it all. Pepper's Ghost is good, but the other album I heard was more metal by the numbers. Its like your favorite old metal band, with a different singer than your used to. Jadis is another band that falls into this category. Who knows, maybe one of these two bands will make their way into my rotation and I'll say to myself, "who does that song?" MP3 rotation has revived interest in a number of old bands in my collection.