ARRIVAL

In 2004, multi-instrumentalist Jeff Hamel (from prog-metallers Osmium) started working as Majestic, working mostly on his own with just the occasional guest singer. After releasing a couple of albums he joined forces with vocalist and lyricist Jessica Rasche, and together they worked on 'Arrival', which was released in 2009. There are only four songs, but with an album length of over 77 minutes you can work out for yourself that they are a little long. In fact, there are only two real epics, with the two in the middle being 'just' nine minutes each. At no point this this seem like a project, as there is a real band feel to the proceedings and there is also a great deal of restraint so that all of the music makes sense as opposed to self-indulgency, which can creep on some projects. Another thing that really hits home is the lack of fat within the songs. The first time I played this I was astounded when I realized that "Grey" has been playing for more than twenty minutes as I had the impression that it had only been on the player for a very short period of time.

Symphonic, yet with plenty of prog metal overtones, elements of Floyd mixed with some of Dream Theater, this is a heck of an album. If you go to the website and sign up to the newsletter you can download some albums free of charge so why not give it a try? www.majesticsongs.com