THE CLOCKWORK FABLE

I got this mammoth of an album (three CD's in a fantastic designed DigiPak with over 3 hours of music and radioplay-bits on it) a few days ago (pre-ordering directly at the band's website rules!), and had in in my player since then. Gandalf's Fist have outdone themselves with this one *again* - even if you're not into all those radio-play dialogues and acting stuff, you still end up (by programming the player to just play all the EVEN track-numbers) with over 2 hours of fantastic music.

It's a general mixture between old and new, between sheer mandness and pure genious, spiced with a keen sense of beautiful and hooking melodies. Several songs end with such epic endings ("A Solemn Toast for the Steam Ranger Reborn" or "The Lamplighter (Parts IX-XIII)", to name just two), that you might think the albums over now. But then it moves on, even topping the preceeding songs. It is really hard to make out *THE* stand-out song, as there's so many of them. You're into ballads? Then "Eve's Song" and "The Clockwork Fable" might be just for you. Some more "pop-prog" stuff? Checkout "The Lamplighter (Parts XIV-XV)" or "Through The Lens". I could go on like that for ages, I have not heard something like this before - such diversity, such brilliant songwriting, so many melodies that won't go out of your head even after first listen!

I sometimes caught myself humming or whistling some yet familiar, but somewhat unknown melodies recently, and I wondered where I got that melody from - turns out it was one of the many parts and melodies hidden in this album.

But, besides the beautiful music - there's a story being told between (and within) the songs. It's the odd fight of good against evil, of we we simply never seem to get enough of. Here, the love for detail is at a really high quality, with the accompanying website Gandalf's Fist have set up. Really drags you into it, and after listening to half of the Album, you just cannot stop it, you want to find out if the band of rebels makes it in the end, or if "evil" prevails...

To sum it up: This seems to be Gandalf's Fist at their peak. I couldn't imagine them to become any better, but they probably will prove me wrong one day. Until then, I have this absolutely fantastic album to digest.

Truly deserved 5/5 Stars!