SEVEN DAYS OF A LIFE

The original MUSEA team idea was far from modest: to make a CD in which the 7 greatest early 90's bands from 7 different countries had all titles composed especially for "Seven Days of a Life" concept: the cycle of the journey through Life. The result is GREAT ! I'm trying to understand why this is the 1st review of this 1993 must have CD. Maybe because it's various artists disc, and generally those efforts don't work, but "Seven days of a life" is a flamboyant of sophisticated prog and the compositions were made only to it!

In "Seven days..." the diversity of moods is remarkable, as keep your interest throughout the run time. I deeply thank MUSEA to promote a much more elaborated prog - read mainly symphonic - during early 90's when the Neo prog was in force. Only later, principally in Sweden, prog bands took the 70's models for inspiration ( The first F. K. is from 1995).

So this is not a simple compilation CD as all tracks were unpublished. According to liner notes, because of long delay to gather all material, only SAGRADO was allowed to include the track in their 3rd album. Years before, at the vinyl era, MUSEA made the ENCHANTEMENT album that only had unreleased tracks by French bands (quite worth too). I will focus my rate only in each "Seven days of a Life" tracks (they are from 7 different bands, of course), NOT the bands previous work.

KERRS PINK - "Monday" 4,5 stars. Excellent own melodic moods, vocals, organ, keyboards and guitar; the Norway folk section brings great freshness. No sensation of I've heard this before; HALLOWEEN - "Tuesday" 3,5 stars. This title is in the vein of a sympho- trash-horror movie, not alike a soundtrack; the mood and line up is the same of "Laz" (****,1989 - hey, to me "Laz" album is underrated at PA in October/2009, why ?!). Halloween from France sounds its own with the violin and spectacular and weird ideas and vocals;

ROUSSEAU - "Wednesday" 4,5 stars. Simply one of the best compositions (instrumental) I heard by this German band and I know the 2 previous albums, you can compare Rousseau a bit with Camel; - NORTH STAR, 3 stars, from USA, a more direct prog, great song in Genesis vein, it rocks ; - VERMILION SANDS 3,5 stars. Representing Japan this beautiful song reminds acoustic Genesis meeting Renaissance, great female vocals.

EZRA WINSTON 4 stars. Here the powerful Italy. I'm not sure "Saturday" captures the full complex diversity of such grandiose band, but of course, this is a neat sample. I'm absolute fan of their 2 previous 1988 and 1990, albums; - SAGRADO from Brazil, my land, 3 stars. The last "Sunday" is very symphonic with great violins, English speakers may complain of accents, anyway SAGRADO sounds absolutely their own, main influence comes from Minas Gerais Brazilian state melodic music melted with prog, so very original. You may consider few rock energy, more symphonic, and song or a bit new age oriented music alternating bombastic with romantic. But this track suffers a bit of sameness, it could be shorter. Circa 1988 I watched a SAGRADO show which demonstrated how incredible and better a band can be on stage rather than on a record.

Looking to "Seven days of a Life" cover you may think: inside there's kind of Santa Claus celebration music ;-). With the back draw you get the whole idea. Oh ! Don't get deceived, this is as in MUSEA catalog words : "a magnificent land/soundscape of FLAMBOYANT progressive music" - Symphonic of course. Remind we are in 1993 a time when sophisticated prog was trying to reborn- ANGLAGARD "hybris" is from 1992. So it's musically and historically a very important effort by MUSEA team. In early 90's SI music label from Holland was promoting NEO PROG, but they failed, and MUSEA label exist from 80's begining till nowadays -2009.