Circle II Circle w/ Heaven and Hell and A Tortured Soul

While the original singer of the Florida power-metal institution Savatage, Jon Oliva, has spent much of his recent career with the prog-rock Christmas cash cow the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, since 2001 Oliva’s replacement Zachary Stevens has continued to make the kind of proggy metal records that Savatage fans crave with his own band, Circle II Circle. The group’s latest album, Consequence of Power, is the kind of melodic hard-rock record that was in vogue throughout the ’80s but without the excess braggadocio that sometimes made it hard to take those records seriously. Stevens prefers a much more personal, down-to-earth form of songwriting.