BLACK SEPTEMBER

ELP and Keith Emerson springs to mind after a couple of minutes. So does Magellan. It is pretty obvious that both bands is a good reference source, although Magellan had just started out back in 1994 and was probably not even started when the music at this album was being written. Saga too is another good reference. The music here is symphonic with an 1980s and 1990s feel to it. Bombastic as a tonne of bricks. The music calms down after a while and we even get a power ballad here in the form of Forever Winter. Remember, this was the early 1990s and obscene abnormalities like power ballads was in fashion. Forever Winter is not bad so this band is almost forgiven. It is though an AOR track and is out of tune with the rest of the album. AOR is something this album is touching base with too often on this album. I am not a fan of Ekseption and to my displeasure; I find a lot of their type of symphonic prog in this album. Add Trace too and you get the picture. There is a lot of cheap jingles like melody lines here. For me; the music on this album is not sophisticated. It sounds too commercial for sake of commercialism. This was the age of the TV series Miami Vice, remember. The music here fits nicely into that concept. The vocals is pretty dire too. The addition of violin and saxophone is pretty good though and a redeeming feature. The mastermind behind this music was not totally lost. Far from it.

I think this is a rather good synth based symphonic prog album. It has it's big flaws, yes. But it also have some good music. The standard in symphonic prog was set very high by the likes of PFM, Genesis, The Nice, Kansas, Yes and ELP. Black September is not in the same standard. But it is a good album. Consider a purchase if you are into American symphonic prog or ELP like prog. Shame about the artwork, though.

3 stars

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