RITUAL

What a come back... After the interesting debut of Journey of the Shaman, Nemrud followed up with the amazing new concept album Ritual. After these years Nemrud founds there own face and sound which will stay in history of progrock music for years as classic Nemrud sound. This album is first evidence of it.

Tracks are as following:

In my Mind is candidate one of Nemrud's classics. Here, you're given a taste of Mert Gocay's great guitar work, along with his harmonic vocals. The atmosphere suddenly changes and it is really tranquil and in moments relaxing with smooth vocals, so it is great how they suddenly changed from a provocative and strong opener, to a soft and calm. These changes in the tracks to appreciate Nemruds mixture of sounds and feelings. This one proves that psychadelic and progressive music can be catchy and still fantastic.

Sorrow by Oneself is a very laid back track, with good singing, interesting lyrics, and effective guitar. In the middle of the songs fantastic moog work by Topel welcomes you than very catchy melody by guitar takes us through very interesting part of the song which full of energy with great drum work.

Light; unbelievably short, relaxed and mellow feeling that Nemrud is so succesful in creating...I need more and more but at least I know that after this comes "Ritual"

After a weird intro, "Ritual" leads us in Psychedelic territory, the music is dreamy and trippy but the sound is typical of the early 70's, less aggressive than debut album but with the same spirit, only that more delicate and elaborate, simply delightful. The characteristic voice of Mert Gocay and the nice work by all the band (specially by the drum and keyboards) demonstrates us this band is in the road towards huge achievements. The song goes in crescendo and the instruments keep joining and making it more complex, the tortured guitar of Mert Gocay takes us through the eras of Nemrud from their early effort, to the classic era, all in a lapse of minutes. These 18 minutes are pure prog brilliance...

Mert Gocay clearly shows maturation on this album as the music is more elaborate, better produced, with the whole album having much better cohesion in themes and moods. Nemrud again shows strong Pink Floyd influences, but I also hear some similarities with the Camel, Uriah Heep and Eloy in places.

Easily a five-star masterpiece...An essential acquisition for those of you interested in the psychedelic side of progressive rock, especially if you want to hear something different. Highly recommended !!