THE MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE

This album seems to have inspired very polarizing reactions on this site, with some hailing it as a masterpiece and others calling it an overly bombastic and cheesy album that fails to inspire. I fall somewhere in between these two extremes. The music on this album, while certainly bombastic, is quite good, conjuring up heroic images of fantastic landscapes and brave knights. However, what would otherwise be at least a four star album is held back by some production problems and often lackluster vocals.

As to the nature of the music on this album, it is generally orchestra-driven symphonic prog with a great deal of keyboard and synthesizer work, as is to be expected from Rick Wakeman. For those who dislike overly bombastic, "epic" music, this album will likely be a chore to endure. However, for others such as myself who enjoy these kinds of compositions, the music on the album is a real treat. The orchestra and choir work well with Wakeman's choice of keyboards and instrumentation, creating a truly enjoyable sound. However, there are issues.

First off, it may just be the digital copy of the album I purchased, but some songs (the beginning of "Guinevere" in particular) seem to suffer from fuzzy audio quality which obscures the music. This is a fairly rare problem, however. A bigger issue is the vocal quality on this album. Some songs, such as the final track, "The Last Battle," have vocal performances that are quite good. On other tracks, such as "Arthur," the singer sounds as if he is audibly struggling to hit the notes. This can make the vocals occasionally painful to listen to. However, it is not a constant problem, and if one is able to overlook these flawed vocal performances, the music is generally quite good.

Overall, I would recommend this release to anyone who is a fan of epic, orchestral music and is willing to overlook some occasional issues with vocals and recording quality. A good album overall with some flaws that cause it to fall a bit short of four stars.