THE KEY, PART II - THE LABYRINTH

248 reviews/ 2½ years later: Part Two. During that time I have heard a lot more Neo Prog, but my relationship with this Clive Nolan Project hasn't grown any warmer. Wheras The Prophesy contained shortish separate tracks, this one has 5 tracks from 6+ minutes to 20+ minutes. That may be a hurrah for many (Neo-)progheads but not for me, not in this case anyway. Another new feature is the addition of a male singer (Alan Reed, not bad) on few places. Tracy Hitchings (formerly of LANDMARQ) has a bigger share, unfortunately. What a pretentious, over-the-top, mock-sensual style she has. Her voice resembles a bit TOYAH (remember her from the 80s?), with a hint of BONNIE TYLER, but with theatrics of Rob Sowden (ARENA).

Karl Groom (guitars) is credited for bass and drum programming too; the keyboard-dominated sound of this band clearly suffers from the lack of a solid rhythm section. Nolan is "poor man's Rick Wakeman", except that the speedy breathtaking (airy!) solos seem to be not his area. He can build up heavy layers of organ-like synths but it seldom sounds great to my ears. It often gives me a stuffy association to role-playing computer games or such. The lyrics are not about dungeons and dragons but as well they could be. Highlights (if I can call them highlights) were the few moments for acoustic guitar and Reed's vocals. OK, I may be too harsh for these albums. The band info, whoever wrote it, gives quite an opposite opinion, and there are five 4-star rates for this one. It's a matter of taste!

The key pt. 3 was planned to be released in 1998, does anyone know if it ever did?

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