WELCOME TO THE UNKNOWN

I was a little surprised to be sent this album, as I wasn't exactly wonderfully kind about their 2014 release 'Closed Doors To Open Plains', but I can see that there have been some changes in the band since the last one. Guitarist Florian Wenzel and sole remaining founder member Dirk Berger (bass, keyboards, vocals) have dispensed with the services of drummer Marco Grühn and Malte Twarloh (vocals, guitars, keyboards), and have brought in drummer Julian Hielscher so are now a trio as opposed to a quartet. One of the major issues I had with the last album was the quality of the vocals, and I still believe that to be an area of weakness, but not nearly as much of a problem as it was last time around.

Musically the band are a solid neo prog outfit, with quite a concentration on guitars, and it is when they are playing more straight forward rock that they shine. "Plans To Make Plans" is a good example of this, with the backing vocals of Christina Mielke adding a touch of lightness to the overall sound. I definitely prefer this to the last album, and generally the production is good, with some particularly strong bass, but I believe that if they invested in a quality singer then we may be talking about them in a different light. Neo prog fans would do well to seek this out, but it is one to listen to first.

Late 1993 five musicians met in the German city Bremerhaven, all inspired by the music of Marillion, Pink Floyd and Genesis. They founded the band Seasons Of Time, eager to make prog. They suffered from a serie of line-up changes but stay true their inspiration, despite trends and hypes. In 1997 Seasons Of Time released their debut album entitled Behind The Mirror, a concept album about the complex feelings of a woman who killed her children in order to start a new relationship and how this affected the emotional world of this new lover. In 2010 Seasons Of Time was called a day but multi-instrumentalist and prime mover re- started Seasons Of Time, as a studio-project. In 2010 Seasons Of Time released their second album entitled Closed Doors To Open Plains, again a concept album, 'about our desire to want more, higher, quicker and further, without regard to losses, apparently becoming blind, and forgotten to lean back and simply enjoy'. After the recordings the drummer and singer left, the new line-up features Seasons Of Time as a trio, with additional musicians (drums and backing vocals), in 2018 they released their third album Welcome To The Unknown.

I would like to divide this CD into two parts. The first part (track 1-3) features a band that strongly plays in the vein of Neo-Prog, especially Pendragon comes to my mind: between dreamy and bombastic with Gilmourian guitar (like in Toward The Horizonplay) and a dynamic rhythm-section. Unfortunately the English vocals sound pretty mediocre, with a strong accent, in comparison with the powerful instrumental parts a bit amateurish. The second part (track 4-6) showcases a more adventurous band, with more own ideas.

Heavy guitar riffs (close to prog metal) and voices in the epic and varied Joana.

A sound collage intro, a distorted voice and a raw and hypnotizing climate in Drive To Drive.

And sensitive electric guitar, a variety of synthesizer sounds and a bombastic atmosphere with a tight and propulsive beat in the final track The Last Ship.

A nice and pleasant effort, if you don't mind the mediocre English vocals with a strong accent.

This review was recently published in a slightly different version on the Dutch progrock website Background Magazine.