With AWAKEN THE MAN, Mark Gollihur and Josh Sager - the minds behind Din Within - have created a stunning prog masterpiece that weaves together intense, dynamic songs exploring themes of personal struggle and growth. Each song flows effortlessly into the next, with recurring motifs and varied arrangements that engage the listener throughout the album's sixty minutes of music. While the album was entirely composed by Sager and Gollihur, they got some notable assistance: guest artists on AWAKEN THE MAN include guitarist Scott McGill (McGill/Manring/Stevens, Hand Farm, Finneus Gauge) and drummer Mike Ian (Randori, Big Bang), among others. Recorded over a period of several years in Gollihur's Digital Din" home studio, every effort was made to ensure that the album would be worth the wait - and early response from prerelease airplay indicates that it was. The music is a stew of all of the band's progressive rock and neo-prog influences. An attentive listener will find tasty bits of Genesis, Yes, Spock's Beard, Rush, Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Kevin Gilbert, Styx, Kansas, and many others within the eight tracks on the album. But the band's sound, while drawing on the giants of the genre's past, brings a lot of new flavors to the table as well - while some of the ingredients might be familiar, the recipe is definitely new. For instance, "Hey You (Part I)" (which also appeared on the benefit album "The Tsunami Projekt") brings together the familiar overdriven bass and keyboard soloing of the bands of 70's art rock - yet adds sweeping vocal harmonies and pyrotechnic guitar soloing. The wry, almost comical lyrics of "Better Than Before" are woven over an everchanging montage of musical parts. And the title track creates several seemingly unrelated elements that eventually blend into the bombastic ending that closes the album.