THE BRASS SERPENT

Look at this album, it's the virgin land, overlooked by many (who goes after first or third album) with just one review. And no collaborator reviewed it yet, so I'm more or less the first here. Well, this is Symphonic Prog Rock. This can't be anything else and yes, you will feel that you've heard this before. When band is relatively small and releases just few albums (Crucible, I'm talking about you) and/or boast openly about influences by Yes, ELP, Genesis (holy trinity I suppose, it seems like that, but don't take me bad, I like two of these groups and third one I don't know). Great guitar/keyboard solos and (as Mike Portnoy once said), fu_c_kin epic The Brass Serpent.

But wait a minute. When I listen to this album, I always forgot one especially tricky part of this song. The exact middle ("Oh sweet longing..."), which sounds a little bit like Kansas vocals, before turning into more " 'eavy " stuff with more "rock" solo. Never mind it, that doesn't matter much, as it not only fits in, but it also shines. Sounds like late Beardfish at times though (but just for periods of 2-5 seconds, so you'll maybe not even notice).

I once heard Magma (yes, this Zeuhl band) element, but just for 250 milliseconds, so if you haven't noticed previous influence, you'll probably not find this too. Hehe, just joking, this ain't good old Zuhle (sorry, Zeuhl), this is less serious stuff, even also less fun (huh ? how's that possible). This is Symphonic, seriously Symphonic and ready to kill.

Actually not, because there's one problem with this music. I don't care about "I've heard this before", because I can find something good on most of the things in life. Even music. It takes very special album to totally disgust me. This isn't the case, but the problem is in power. They simply don't have it, these songs sound weak. Voice is not strong enough, guitars are not trying enough, keyboards are not making needed effort.

4(-), sometimes it's too weak to enjoy it, but mostly it's good album.