JOURNEY OF THE DUNADAN

Wow, I get to do the first review...............for an album that was released in 1993. Well, I think there is good reason there are no reviews; the album is not very good. I got this album because I really like the Chronometree album, and at the time thought I should start at the beginning with this band and work through their catalog. Well, this is as far as I got. After seeing them at Nearfest and not being very impressed, I have not really given much thought to trying them again. But who knows, I did quite enjoy their song on the Colossus release "The Odyssey".

But back to this album. It is, apparently, some sort of Lord of the Rings tribute type album. This would be bad enough in itself (though I enjoyed the movies myself :-) , but the music is not very interesting. I suppose, being their debut they had not quite perfected their "formula" (whatever that may be) and so a weak first album is not that unusual in any case. The music, overall, is well played. The vocals are somewhat bland as compared to their more recent works, and there is strangely not as much of a retro prog sound and style on this one. Oddly, this actually detracts from this albums appeal, as when Glass Hammer focuses on doing retro prog, they usually do it quite well. Frankly, in this case I have trouble following the story (even though it is very familiar) and the music leaves me little to nothing to grab onto and enjoy. I can't recall a single melody after it is over (except, perhaps, the brief Prancing Pony, and I wish I could forget that one).

So overall for me, no songs really stand out, though the 2 longer tracks have some interesting instrumental play from what I can recall. And in general I don't get the desire to pull this one out. It is, in a word, boring. Luckily, GH would do more interesting things later. This one is really only for the die hard fans.