THE BORDER OF AWARENESS

Arne Schafer the singer / guitarist for VERSUS X goes solo and calls his project APOGEE. He composes, arranges and performs all the songs on his own. Yes he is a multi- instrumentalist. The drums are programmed, and the mellotron are samples. His vocals remind me a little of Andy Tillison's.

"The Border of Awareness" starts off sounding like a 60's Psychedelic tune for the first 2 minutes with reserved vocals and acoustic guitar. The song then changes to a full sound with some great keyboard work and mellotron too. "Falling Up The Stairs" opens with spacey synths as some beautiful guitar melodies come in reminding me of Fripp at times. Lots of tempo changes in this song, too many to go through this song step by step.The guitar, keys and mellotron are all fantastic ! "In The Dark" opens with acoustic guitar and soft vocals. The keyboard melody is great and so are the waves of mellotron. There is some intricate guitar playing that goes on and on. Nice.

"Hide & Seek" opens with odd sounding keys before acoustic guitar and vocals take over. They are eventually joined by drums and guitar. Some amazing guitar 5 minutes in. "Circumstance" is an atmospheric song with lots of mellotron. It is by far the shortest song on the album at just over 4 minutes in length. "The Range Of Matter" is almost 24 minutes long and it's a ride. The intro is haunting as synths and Gilmour like guitar solos come in. Fragile vocals follow as this song changes moods often. Lots of atmospheric passages. A tasteful guitar solo 13 minutes in. Lots of guitar later as well.

I like this album although it's a little too long in my opinion.