THE JOURNEY

With the Life Line Project album "The Journey" you get the best value for your money. It's a double disc with a lavish booklet, showing all aspects and possibilities of the band. The first disc contains the complete "Journey To The Heart Of Your Mind", a piece that lasts a bit longer than one hour and tells the story of a man in search of himself. It's a bit like a rock opera, because there are more vocalists participating. Don't expect vocal diarrhoea, because Journey To The Heart Of Your Mind isn't like all these metal operas full of bombastic vocals. The music is the most important thing here and every theme and every chord progression underlines the events in the story. The arrangements are perfect. A woodwind section with flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, playing over an accompaniment of acoustic guitars, lutes, harpsichord & piano, gives you moments to unwind between the massive symphonic themes, played by the keyboards and lead guitars. The bass and drums give a solid support to both the beautiful symphonic rock themes and the often more aggressive very seventies sounding Moog and Hammond solos. In fact the keyboard playing by Erik de Beer can easily compete with the best Emerson or Wakeman, although the beauty of his themes remind me a bit more of Tony Banks. The lead vocals are taken care of by Marion Brinkman-Stroetinga, who has an excellent and warm voice. Songs like "Longing for my Childhood" and "Credo" sound beautiful and touching. The voice of Marion is like the heart of the music. The second disc shows a bit more the skills of the individual band members. The flute and the oboe play major parts in acoustic pieces, accompanied only by the piano and in the brilliant unplugged "Collage". "Turn the Key" shows us once more, that Erik de Beer is among the best keyboard players and gives us an overdose of Hammond and Moog solos. The beautiful centre piece of the second disc is the title piece "The Narrow Path" an almost 12 minutes lasting symphonic rock epic against the madness of religious fanaticism. It's a dark and brooding piece with a leading role for the mellotron, that sounds a bit like early King Crimson. An oriental oboe intervention, a lonely flute passage and the beautiful vocals of Marion complete the picture of this song, that is perhaps the best composition on the entire album. A cheerful note is struck with "Monkey Business" with a swinging flute part and a very jazzy acoustic piano solo. After the beautiful symphonic rock ballad "Does it help", well sung and with an almost Hackett- like guitar solo, the Journey ends with an adaptation of an anonymous French folksong. THE JOURNEY is the best way to get to know all the possibilities of Life Line Project and it is one of the best albums I've heard lately and I think this is one of those albums that truly deserve five stars! Whistler.