ARGUS

Well, first, I don't understand why this band is here, as this seems to be just a typical rock album. I do not see any traces of prog here. This is just rock, and rock&roll.

Secondly, I just find the music mostly dull, repetitive, and uninspired. Melodically poor, harmonically simple, and the musicianship and vocals are just not very strong. The songs are long because they drag, not because they are multi-segmented mini-epics.

Third, this is a style of music that I really enjoy listening to, so It's not like I'm reviewing a neo-prog (sorry) album or an 80s pop album. So, I just find it very mediocre compared to similar artists like Led Zeppelin.

I'll discuss track by track why I consider the first half of this album very weak.

This Was: The album begins with a pleasant acoustic intro and decent (but not very good) vocals, but it keeps being like that with no variation for almost three minutes. The rest is extremely repetitive Rock&roll with an obvious Led Zeppelin influence throughout. There are a few moments where musicianship is great (the guitars), but that mediocre Led Zeppelin-style riff played forever ruins everything. Bad start. 2/10

Sometime World follows the same format: It begins as a decent yet not very interesting acoustic ballad is played for a long time with little variation yet turns into another pointless, repetitive, straight rocker for over four minutes. Sure, the soloing is pretty good, but the songwriting here is just terrible. It's just the same riffing for a long long time. 3/10

Blowin' Free: A more boogie-style number with a very uninteresting guitar riff played for a long time. It has a decent mellow section around the middle with nice guitar. Unfortunately, s ending is a disaster: it sounds like Led Zeppelin, but much worse than that band at its worst with an irritating riff and a kind of awful guitar solo. 2/10

Fortunately, none of the following 4 songs are bad.

The King Will Come: The riff-oriented repetitive nature of the album continues but this song is slightly more varied and at least the main riff is decent. The music is mid-tempo, rocking, and quite celebratory I could say (it just sounds positive). The guitar performance is pretty good and while the song is repetitive, at least it does not sound bad. Unfortunately, the vocals are not very good, like always. 5/10

Leaf and Stream: Once the ok vocals shut up for a bit, there is a very good clean guitar solo in the middle of the song. This song is more harmonic and much prettier than the mellow moments in the first tracks. It is however, playing the same acoustic pattern for 4 minutes. 5.5/10

Warrior: good song! Of course, it's repetitive and is based only on a couple of riffs, but hey, these riffs are pretty good and the soloing in the background is good too. At minute 1, there is a beautiful mellow riff. Of course, the not so good vocals come, but they don't really ruin that part. The ending would be so good if the vocalists had good voice. 5.5/10

Throw Down the Sword is my favourite song and despite the same intro riff being played alone for over a minute, this is possibly the least repetitive track here. After that riff, it is just a normal conventional song but what makes this song stand out is the last two minutes. What a brilliant climax! Two guitar solos playing simultaneously over a good instrumental backdrop. It is not something I hear everyday, and sounds very hard to do, but they pulled off the twin guitar solo perfectly. 7.5/10

Well, the second half of the album is pretty decent, if repetitive music and finishes with a glorious guitar performance in its last two minutes, but the first half is beyond poor. I just find it very hard to focus on that music as it seems to rock and rock and rock mindlessly for eternity with very little variation and few excellent solos.

I recommend to look for other 70s classic rock rather than here.

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