CANTUS FIRMUS

Advent´s second album Cantus Firmus is a mixed bag of music. The album is from 2006 but it´s obvious from the start that this is a retro prog rock album which draws it´s influences heavily from the big seventies prog rock bands like Gentle Giant, Kansas and Yes.

The first song with it´s a cappella polyrythmic singing is what mostly links Advent to Gentle Giant but there are a few instrumental moments too that leads me to think of that band. The music is pretty good allthough Cantus Firmus is not the most memorable or challenging album I have heard. Another american prog rock band also comes to mind and that´s Cathedral. Advent isn´t anywhere near as good or original as Cathedral though.

The musicianship is very good even though I´m not much of a fan of Henry Ptak´s voice. It´s too low in the mix which probably doesn´t help either.

The production is a bit of a problem for me. It doesn´t sound fully professional to my ears and I´m not enjoying myself with this sound. It doesn´t exactly ruin the music but it certainly doesn´t enhance my experience either.

The cover artwork is rather enjoyable for the eye and signals precisely what it should.

Advent could use a bit more originality in their music but otherwise this is actually a good album that I´ll rate 3 small stars. The problem is that there are so many other good albums in this style that I would rather listen to that this album will probably collect a lot of dust on my shelf and it might be closer to 2 stars than the 3 I´m going to rate it.