ANOTHER WORLD

Autumn is coming soon in the northern hemisphere and here we are with the third album from the Australians SOUTHERN EMPIRE, one of the emblematic bands of the southern hemisphere! A third opus with a major change in the position of vocalist Shaun HOLTON (passed by "The Voice" in his country replacing Danny LOPRESTO), LOPRESTO nevertheless co-composing five titles out of seven.

This disc offers us the excellent like the second piece "Face the Dawn" (9/10) from the great symphonic progressive (the acoustic guitar accompanied by the violin at 3:45 is just sumptuous), to the more than mediocre "When You Return" and again I weigh my words (5/10). Big gap then and Shaun HOLTON's singing has nothing to do with it, being more than correct or even good, for me the slayer of singers who would do better to keep quiet. Let's take the pieces in random order because this is sometimes the right method to discover a work that is as complex as this "Another World" is, to say the least.

The fifth track "Moving Through Tomorrow" for example would have benefited from being shortened by a good two minutes, the final part spoiling the pleasure of the beginning (8/10) all the same. The sixth, the peplum "White Shadows" and its more than nineteen minutes, majestically introduced by the violin, the flute and the piano during its first four minutes, gets lost in useless meanders of complexity afterwards (what a shame) , making me think of more than passable SPOCKS BEARD (a band that I never got attached to), the saxophone bringing something extra to this piece? but what does the metallic guitar break do which ruins everything in the seventh minute and the jazzy digression of the fifteenth minute! (7/10) because it is necessarily complicated to compose such long suites (let's give credit to Sean TIMMS).

As you will have understood, my disappointment is more than equal to the hopes I had for SOUTHERN EMPIRE; of course a record which will not appear in my fifteen albums of 202