SHADOWLAND

Why am I actually writing this review? The album discussed here from 1994 is hardly available anymore, only as part of the box set "Cautionary Tales" (2009). I decided to write this review anyway because "Through The Looking Glass" holds a prominent place within the genre of neo-prog in the 90s. There is also a thick layer of pop prog from the eighties interwoven in the music and that is something you can trust Nolan and his men with. The overall atmosphere of the album has a dark and intense feel, even more so than on the predecessor "Ring Of Roses" (1992), a path that can be found a year later with Arena. Nolan handles the vocals himself in Shadowland and he does it well. While his range is not too extensive, his commitment and passion make up for it and his passionate way of singing adds a personal touch to the music. In my opinion, "Through The Looking Glass" is the best that Shadowland had to offer at that time.

The album opens with A Matter Of Perspective, driven by acoustic guitar and it closes with the bombastic Mindgames, two songs with a strong connection as they are both based on the same melody and share the same lyrics in the choruses. I appreciate such a structure where the intermediate six songs are held together as a cohesive unit. This arrangement raises the question of how conceptually oriented this album is. The songs deal with fantasies, dreams and fears, all of which converge in the rabbit hole of the title track, which, in turn, is based on C.S. Lewis' book Alice in Wonderland. So, I say: yes, "Through The Looking Glass" is conceptually oriented.

The songs are something to be enthusiastic about. Nolan has written all the compositions on the album and of course, they are all excellent in terms of structure and variation. Nolan never takes shortcuts and on "Through The Looking Glass", he once again showcases his songwriting skills. You can also hear that all band members enjoy bringing these compositions to life. Karl Groom's guitar is masterful. He glides through the music delightfully, providing power and melody. In The Hunger, he presents a piece of polyphonic guitar work, always seeking surprises and excelling in combinations with the creative Nolan. The two are supported by the beautiful, sometimes fretless bass playing of Ian Salmon and the deep drums of Nick Harradence, both perfectly mixed. Listen to how Harradence makes a song like Half Moon Street explode with his dynamic beats.

A standout track for me is Dreams Of The Ferryman. It portrays a dream of Nolan's about a serial killer and features brilliant interplay between guitar and keyboards. Another song that consistently catches my attention is When The World Turns To White. Two things are responsible for this. Firstly, there's the intro where Nolan shows off his violin- playing skills. He accompanies himself with those stately harpsichord sounds. Another remarkable aspect is the 6/8 sway of the song, my favorite time signature. The highlight of the album is undoubtedly the epic title track, where a plethora of tempo and mood changes color the landscape for over eleven minutes. The passage with the acoustic guitar is very beautiful and the thunderous ending, bordering on prog metal, is also impressive.

"Through The Looking Glass" and I have been good buddies for years and I wish the same for you. The name Clive Nolan has become synonymous with neo-prog. Do yourself a favor and go on a treasure hunt. You shall be rewarded.

Orginally posted on www.progenrock.com

Well, it seems my tastes are different. I listened to mostly-praised albums from Marillion and IQ (Script For A Jester's Tear, Fugazi, Brave, Dark Matter, Frequency) and the only album I generally liked was IQ's "Frequency". As I'm a die-hard fan of Pendragon and Arena, I decided to give Clive Nolan's other collaborations a try. So here we go.

My first impressions with this album were positive, but it was after reading the lyrics while listening for the second time that I really liked it. It grew on me very quickly and I can now ignore its shortcomings and listen to every song without skipping. The album starts with the acoustic-guitar-driven "A Matter Of Perspective". Clive Nolan's voice is very interesting and as others said, while his vocal range is not wide and he sings safely, he sings with a passion that you can't ignore. The song has just the right length with a chilling closing which drags you into the album, where "The Hunger" attacks. An energetic song for sure. The chorus is full of confidence as opposed to the next song, "Dreams Of The Ferryman" which is in my opinion one of the best songs of the album. I simply love that sense of prostration, "Mercy! Please don't do this to me!". Then comes the "Half Moon Street", with a dark intro. The drums are overt and strong, which enhances the mood of the song. "When The World Turns To White" is a promising song with a very, very beautiful violin solo at the first minutes, performed by Clive Nolan himself. The violin and harpsichord-like keyboards give the first part of the song an old feeling. After some hopeful moments, we have "The Waking Hour" which is one of those dark, yet happy songs with a sense of numbness. The album's title track, "Through The Looking Glass" is where Clive Nolan really shines in his singing. Very emotional! And a very emotional song indeed, with powerful guitar solos and drumming. Definitely another highlight of the album. "Mind Games" resumes the first track and closes the album like it started. There's a bonus track called "So The Music Stops" as well, a piano ballad which is nice.

I really enjoyed this album. But I give it 4.5 stars actually, because I think it could have been darker and more melodic with more engaging songs and more solos.

For a band that has only made 3 albums in almost 30 years, the band never split up and after many years of inactivity they jump on the opportunity to make a video with the "charity club" of Metal Mind productions who has invited all Neo Prog band to play in Poland for a few bucks. Shadowland is another project from Clive Nolan when he has nothing to do with Arena, Pendragon or others projects with some female singers... The music is a bit similar to those bands with a Karl Groom touch on guitar and the vocals of Clive which is not the best singer but does an honest job like he did with Caamora. After a standard rock start to the show, "The Whistleblower" brings some progressive rock passages with a different mood. "Mephisto Bridge" has a dark intro followed by one of many Karl Groom guitar solo. "Hall of Mirrors" contains some definitive Arena/Marillion flavors with big instrumental parts and tasty keyboards lines from Mike Varty. "Edge of Night" is a song only available on a compilation album and still has that Arena influence. "Dream of the Ferrymen" is coming from a recurrent dream of Clive about a serial killer. The heavy guitar riffs on this one are trying to capture the dark nature of the lyrics. This song again could have been on an Arena album. In conclusion, the show is well shot by Metal Mind with enough visual to keep things enjoyable. But the music is not for those who want to hear the best Neo Prog Bands, but it's close. If you don't have enough Neo Prog music, this is a nice complement to the IQ type of bands.

Following the warm praise of the press and Neo Prog fans worldwide, Shadowland entered the Thin Ice Studios to record their second album.Featuring Tina Riley on backing voices, the whole process would last only about a month, between October and November 93', and the new work would see the light in 1994 on SI Music under the title ''Through the looking glass''.

As Shadowland's style was always quite song-oriented and with generally simplistic structures, noone could expect a massive change in terms of style, however Shadowland seem to have added another dose of accesibility in their sound, which now has plenty of AOR vibrations in the more mellow moments and the catchy choruses.Of course this is nowhere near cheesiness, because Nolan often takes over with some trully bombastic keyboard waves, while his voice is always expressive without any hear-melt orientations.I could say this is closer than ever to (Nolan's future project) ARENA's more edgy and accesible tracks or LANDMARQ's pair of opening albums with lots of interesting guitar solos, powerful synthesizers and well-crafted melodies.Surprisingly the tracks are rather long, but do not expect any particular variations, the extended durations come as a result of a couple of long intros along with the dual keyboard and guitar flashes along the way.Despite its simplicity and lack of trully adventuruous spirit, ''Through the looking glass'' remains a fairly decent album due to its interim, highly atmospheric pomposity, the huge amount of energy and dynamics throughout and the decent sum of good, memorable melodious parts.

Recommended to all fans of well-composed Neo Prog.Passionate music with dramatic segments, carefully executed rhythmic and melodic parts and sufficient vocal performance.

As far as Clive Nolan's side projects outside of Pendragon go, I've always preferred Arena to Shadowland - and listening to Mad as a Hatter, it sounds like Clive was inclined to agree by this point! The album steers directly for the rather darker and more complex musical territory occupied by Arena and leans away from the sunnier and lighter material of the previous two Shadowland albums, but it doesn't quite succeed - the production values are not what they could be, the songwriting isn't particularly interesting, and on the whole I can't help but wonder whether Clive was holding his best song ideas back for the next Arena album.

A similarly AOR-leaning followup to the preceding Ring of Roses, Through the Looking Glass shows very little in the way of musical development or transition from its predecessor. If you liked that album, you'll probably like this too, but for my part I find it just as lightweight and forgettable. Clive Nolan's vocals at points remind me of a more amateurish attempt at the sort of performances he'd later inspire from the various vocalists who've worked with Arena over the years, so I guess in that context he finally found singers who could do justice to his ideas; this time around, alas, his musical ideas fail him.

One of Clive Nolan's many projects, Shadowland were purveyors of a fairly light and mainstream-leaning brand of neo-prog; on Ring of Roses they sound to me a lot like a combination of the lyrical approach (but not the actual vocal style) of Fish, combined with a musical style mingling the approach of Fish's early solo albums, some of Pendragon's 80s efforts, a pinch of Jadis and the faintest little echo of U2. It's well-performed and well-produced, but it doesn't really grab me personally - the whole thing feels a little sterile and calculated, like they sat down and went through a checklist of neo-prog cliches. If you are a particularly keen Clive Nolan fan, you'll want it regardless of what I say, and it's not terrible - just not, in my view, especially special either.

3.5 stars. This was the first ever chance to see Shadowland live (as usual in so many neo prog acts, recorded in Poland). And I must say I had mixed feelings about it.

It´s easy to understand why Shadowland was never as big as Arena, Clive Nolan´s (of Pendragon fame) other side project. While the quality of the music is clearly high, on Arena Nolan always lent vocal duties to strong singers. Here the man himself takes that place. And live, he literally leaves the keyboards in the hands of the capable guest musician Mike Varty. Surprisingly Nolan does have a good singing voice and a rather good stage presence. However, the very nature of his lyrics calls for a more dramatic, versatile and stronger vocalsit. In other words, his voice is too ´soft´ and ´comfortable` for the kind of dark and broody tales he writes. Somehow they don´t really match, which is really a pity, since the songs themselves are great. Oh, well, I might be wrong, but that´s the feeling I get hearing him live with this band.

The instrumental part of the group on the other hand is pretty good. Guitarrist karl Groom (better known for his work with prog metaller group Threshold) is an excellent musician, even though his style here is pretty different from the one he does with Threshold, which proves he great versatility. New bassist Mark Westwood and original drummer Nick Harradence are not far behind in terms of technique and passion. And when they all have the chance to explore the instrumental breaks on longer songs like Hall Of Mirrors, Dreams Of the Ferryman and Jigsaw, they really show their enormous potential in full glory. Not that the other songs are bad, no. They are all good and catchy, but somehow too short and too song oriented for them to display their skills in full. It wouldn´t work.

The show itself was very professionaly recorded, the sound production is top notch and the images are also excellent.

If you like Shadowland, then this is a must have. If you don´t but like good, melodic prog, this is a nice way to know the group since their perfomances are spotless and, in several cases, actually a little better than their studio versions. My rating may be a little harsh considering the overall quality of the songs and the players involved, but really, I must take in consideration that Nolan has done better jobs in both Arena and Pendragon in my opinion.It´s a matter of taste, really.

I'm not sure how it's possible that Neo-Prog is always so melodic. Even more than Symphonic Prog (which has its moments, we all know Yes). So if this is one of the main weapons of Neon albums, then I for sure want to hear it in Neo-Prog music I'm listening. Let's hear ... Indeed, checked, it's here.

Optimistic songs in vein of brighter side of Pendragon, that's one of the projects of Clive Nolan. I'm quite glad that he has taken vocal duties, his voice isn't bad at all (as I feared). His position as vocalist is completely OK with me, because this kind of voice simply fits to this kind of music.

The most prominent instrument is obviously keyboard. Keyboards. The Whistleblower isn't bad at all, actually it's quite good song. Sets the mood for the rest of album, uplifting, saying faithful to the spirit of this genre. Representant of what this music is about. Of course, when I'm in mood to search complexity, I listen to Avant, not Neo-Prog. And I do, often, but when reviewing certain genre, I'm trying to find positives - to think in genre's way of thinking.

Two epics featured here are pleasant surprise. Not that I'm not used to listen Neo epics, but they simply are as expected, as I like it. For example Jigsaw is very, very thrilling track. Sheer energy pouring from this song is enough to get you into something like Prog Heaven. Other tracks are, well, weaker. This is why I'll give

4(-) instead of something better.

No doubt that Clive Nolan is one of the most remarkable genius of nowadays prog rock.

Such a good musician and composer.

And because of that the best prog bands have the active hand of CN(Pendragon,Arena,Caamora...).

This personal project for him as vocalist (and he is a good one for this kind of music) must have had a DVD concert .The concert is good:with excellent images quality and sound,good selection of songs...but may be Shadowland doesn't sound so well in a concert.

Shadowland music is not so complex as Pendragon or Arena(sometimes) music.

It is more melodic a little more pop prog related(sometimes). Its music is a perfect mix between Arena(their most AOR Rock music) and Pendragon.

In a concert in my opinion Shadowland looses emotiviness.

3 stars will be enough , I think