THE SENTINEL

The debut album from these Scottish proggers are regarded as a classic album in this genre. Maybe so...

This album is almost divided into two parts. The pop like songs and the serious symphonic like stuff. The album opens with some pretty lighthearted (music wise) pop like songs like Arrive Alive and Cut & Run. These tracks reminds me a lot about the first SAGA album and the 1980s British pop scene. Not good memories and these tracks makes me cringe. The quality picks up with the March On Atlantis song. This is much more symphonic and proper neo-prog. Still pretty much SAGA, but still good. The following songs are decent too. The best song on this album is Atlantis which is bordering to symphonic prog. The song is majestic, pretty complex and epic. The same can also be said about the closing song Ark Of Infinity. These three songs (March On Atlantis, Atlantis and Ark Of Infinity) is great songs. The rest of the album is at best pretty good.

I would compare this album to SAGA, the Brit pop from the 1980s and RUSH. This album sounds a bit dated today, despite being one of these classic neo prog albums. But this is still a good album.

3 stars