With their surprisingly accomplished debut album, Conspiracy in Mind, Norwegian trio Communic showed that they were precociously talented for a brand-new group (albeit one staffed with semi-veteran players); their second, 2006's Waves of Visual Decay, then revealed them to be incredibly prolific as well, arriving in stores no more than one year after its predecessor. Of course, all this is especially noteworthy because of the group's elaborately conceived brand of progressive metal -- not the kind of music you come up with overnight -- and the fact that, for all of their technical fireworks and dense lyrical landscapes, epic creations like "Under a Luminous Sky," "Fooled by the Serpent," and "At Dewy Prime" possess bona fide hooks, great choruses, and an innate melodic gift that Communic's most frequent comparisons, the veteran Nevermore, have rarely achieved themselves. Compound this with enough complexity and eccentricities (the almost mandatory semi-concept theme throughout) to lure even the more demanding prog-heads to the table (see the standout "Frozen Asleep in the Park," for instance, bearing a quirky title Savatage would have been proud of), it's no wonder that Waves of Visual Decay was so warmly received by the progressive metal community. If anything, it actually upped the stakes from their debut by offering no straight-up ballads, only momentary soft passages like the Queensrÿche-reminiscent "Watching It All Disappear." But, ultimately, Communic's greatest feat in terms of songwriting (and their mass-appeal career prospectus) is making the listener not realize quite how unnaturally long their songs are, opening the door to crossing them over to a much wider audience in the bargain.