THE LORELI

This is a pretty amateurish neo prog album. The "band" plays together only very loosely, both keyboards and guitars are somewhat cheesy, and the vocalist Tracy Hitchings seems to hiss her words. Several of the tracks are appallingly long for this style, and seem short on development or thematic ingenuity. Yet the band also has more of an idea of what simple neo prog should be than many of the biggest names of the genre. As a result, the melodies on the two standout tracks, "The Lorelei" and "Logic", are quite beautiful and touching, and the lyrics, while not brilliant by any stretch, are suitably mystical. The band also includes shorter versions of the two aforementioned tracks, which, particularly in the case of "Logic", are all you really need to hear. This distillation process would be well adopted by others, and, while I can't stretch my assessment beyond 2 stars, I must say this is a more enjoyable listen than most other 2 star efforts I own.