TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS

Yes

Symphonic Prog

3.92 | 2825 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

I've must have waited all my life, for this.

Aah the oh so controversial Tales From Topographic Oceans. An album that on LP consists of 4 sides, and on each side a 20-22 minute long dive into to the so called topographic ocean. This was the album that made Rick Wakeman to leave the band because he thought it was too spacey. And spacey it was.

This album is a rocket that aims for a galaxy beyond human comprehension but ends in a system failure, causing the album to drift eternally around the moon, until you just press eject. The first track is the ignition of what could have been something. Just imagine "The Revealing Science of God / Dance of Dawn" on the same album with a song like "To Be Over You" for example. It's a good track to be honest and i often listen to it. I really enjoy the chorus in the song and find the whole composition very pleasing. Then there's "Remembering" which is ok, and very similiar to the first track. But it's in the end of this track that we can start to hear the engine of our space rocket starting to fail.

And then there's the two last tracks. I must honestly say that i don't get the two last tracks. Musical passages randomly drifting in and out, not even trying to get the listener excited nor pleased. This is what i call background music. You can turn this on if you just want to relax and eventually fall to sleep, but for me this isn't the idea of prog rock. I certainly dont get my prog chills from hearing the endless drifting of "The Ancient / Giants under the sun" or the last track, i wouldn't even remember where in the song i got those chills. This is mediocre stuff at best.

It's still a shame for the first and second track to be dismissed by the slow death of the last two tracks. I would give 3,5 stars if it was possible on PA, but since it's not, i have to make it only 3.

paragraph7 | 3/5 | 2009-6-11

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