THE ODYSSEY

High time for a review for an album of one of the best bands ever who made probably the best song ever and it's on this album. It's of course the title track of over 25 minutes. A rare and perfect combination of prog metal and classical music meeting each other in a true epic, a real Greek epic, an amazing piece of art that will probably never be outclassed in the future (as far as I'm concerned). I even had the privilege to witness this song live (in Amsterdam), an experience I will never forget. In this performance Michael Pinella played the entire orchestral contribution on his keyboards. Unbelievable !! Already this one song would be enough for me to give this album 5 stars even if the rest of the songs would prove to be poor. But guess what, they are not ! The first three songs are somewhat alike and sound quite good but not too special. The next is Accolade II, Accolade I was from the Devine Wings album and was already a favourite of mine but this one is even better, a lot better even, brilliant song. The 5th song (King of Terrors) is the least in my opinion, an average song for SX-standards. Next is The turning, another great one mainly because of the up tempo speed of the song, great drumming by Jason Rullo. After this the runner up of the album qualitywise: Awakenings, a fantastic composition with a tremendous riff by Michael Romeo. Then of course THE SONG and at the end of the album (not in the line-up above) is a remake of Masquerade, that is in the edition that I bought (bonustrack). And even that version is better than the original on one of their older albums.

So I think I have given enough reasons to go for the full 5 here !