THE CREEPING VINE

Well, maybe 4 stars is a little overdone here (3,6 is a lot closer to the truth) but that is also because I know the potential of Robert Reed is even a lot higher than I already thought with this single-man-effort Cyan. Nowadays he is active in Magenta as we know and I believe he is doing an even better job with that project than with Cyan. On the other hand, that doesn't mean we have to undervalue Cyan all over sudden, I think he just made an improvement with Magenta, no more, no less.

The creeping Vine from 1999 was his last effort with Cyan and it's a pretty worthy farewell from this (almost) decade existance. Far from a brilliant album though but don't get put off with the first few tracks, they are not too special. But the strength lies in the second half of the album and than I mean the last 3 tracks in particular. It's a pretty diverse album by the way, first track is an average neoprog track, next is more of a ballad but I got really surprised with the 3rd when I got confronted with a folky track. I didn't see that coming ! The fourth track seemed to be the lesser of the album until the last minute of it made up for a great part thanks to a tremendous guitarriff. Goodbye world is the most epical song, not mindblowing, but good/very good in quality. Mindblowing is what I would call the final guitar solo at the end of The River, to me the highlight of this album. Home (7th track) seemed the instrumental of the album at first but in the final minute the vocals played a part anyway. Last track is the title track, a worthy closer of a very nice album that gave me a bit of a headache at first for the ultimate rating but I believe in the end the 4 stars are defensible.