RITUAL

My Ritual begins! After the low-key, psych-tinged symphonic prog of their debut Journey of the Shaman would make a triumphant and spectacular return with this highly-regarded follow-up. 'Ritual' is, without a doubt, the group's crowning glory, featuring complex instrumentation, darker themes and a more overtly progressive style than debut, showing just how far the band had progressed in a relatively short space of time. The album starts with "In my Mind" a track that has a bit more of Rock than I usually find in NEMRUD, but after a few minutes of this hybrid between soft Symphonic and Rock, it's obvious that the band members know their business, changing melodies with very catchy moods. I like the vocal part especially second section. "Sorrow by Oneself" is a playful sounding track with some great catchy synth melodies with three parts.The first part is mainly based on vocals and acoustic guitar with a beautiful melody. Second part has an awesome synth part comes in, totally mind blowing if you ask me.The last part is my favorite more rockish kind of, thanks to fast guitars and fast rhythm. "Light" has the nice guitar, synth and is far more gentle. Likewise the third track is well enough played and presented, but the last one very extraordinary and high-end to me. ''Ritual'' It's an epic suite. It's organic. It never looses continuity even when the theme moves from a clean guitar melody to a keyboard riff, to warm singing and to the tendentially hard-rock finale. I beleive it will became an all-time favorite of prog fans worldwide through the ages. Conclusion : Good, high-quality compositions, and performed by one of the tightest bands you will hear. Ritual is a solid listen throughout and ages quite well--this will remain in my changer for the forseeable future. If you prefer your prog to center around rock (and not pretentious themes or multi-layered arrangements), then Ritual is a must! Bad, I don't like the sound quality, there is an intolerable noise like vinly not clean. Songwriting: 5 Instrumental Performances: 4 Lyrics/Vocals: 5 Style/Emotion/Replay/Technical: 4