THE ? TRUTH

SEVEN STEPS TO THE GREEN DOOR emerged as far back as 2004 in the East German city of Chemnitz led by the ever talented keyboardist / saxophonist Marek Arnold formerly of bands such as Artrock Project, Toxic Smile, Cyril, Damanek and others. After the band released its first two album Arnold steered the band into a more adventurous direction by taking on an entire trilogy based around a concept of a protagonist named Samuel and his father and a cast of 12 characters that delves into the world of religious fanaticism, a trait often touched upon by Ian Anderson on classic Jethro Tull albums of the 1970s.

The ? trilogy began in 2011 with "The?Book" that initiated the religious fanatic concept by Thoralf Kloss which came with a complete storybook authored by the American George Andrade with multiple musicians participating in the form of a rock opera. The second part "The?Lie" emerged eight years later and not only continued the overarching theme but delivered a more robust delivery of compositional fortitude and took SEVEN STEPS TO THE GREEN DOOR a few paces closer to that elusive doorknob! After a whopping 15 years after the project was initiated the band finally returns with the third edition and sixth album overall with THE?TRUTH which concludes the entire narrative in fine form.

The 12 characters and singers include many prog veterans including Peter Jones (Camel, Tiger Moth Tales), Manuel Schmid (Stern Combo Meissen), Larry B. (Toxic Smile) and Elisabeth Markstein (Alphaville). The band has remained consistent with Ulf Reinhardt (drums, percussion), Robert Brenner (bass) and Martin Fankhänel (guitars) joining Marek for this conclusion as well as three additional musicians and the fifteen vocalists participating in one form or another. The album features ten tracks that are just shy of the 72-minute mark of playing time and the music follows the band's usual recipe of melding symphonic prog and neo-prog crossover aspects with moments of fully adrenalized progressive metal including a few surprising death growls performed by the grandfather courtesy of Micha Heinzig.

Sounding something like a less metallic Ayreon offering, THE?TRUTH captures the essence of a bonafide rock opera with all the narrative trials and tribulations that the storyline unfolds along with a musical procession of crafty art pop punctuated by more feisty moments of guitar crunch in upbeat metal mode. Clever uses of musical motifs offer supplemental emotional tugs to the storyline and the album flows fairly consistently from beginning to end with nary a hiccough derailing its trajectory to conclude the trilogy with a climatic thunderous crescendo. With strong art pop hooks fortified by stellar prog rock workouts, musically speaking THE?TRUTH delivers the goods in the form of a well produced modern rock opera with a meandering musical accompaniment to the storyline at hand with a few jazzy saxophone moments finding their way into the otherwise rock oriented musical flow.

Overall THE?TRUTH is a decent conclusion to one of Germany's most lauded melodic contributions to the world of crossover symphonic prog however i tend to find rock operas in general to be a little cheesy especially during the slower moments where the male and female vocals have a discussion and the music is set to a simmering ballad. The more upbeat moments however are quite satisfying and the overall dynamics are well constructed offering a nice mix of sounds that keep the album from stagnating. In the end i find the album to be a bit too long for its own good but then again i'm not really interested in the storyline as much as others probably will be. I'm into the music first and in that department THE?LIE is very strong indeed. A very cleverly constructed conclusion to the ambitious trilogy that is very satisfying but in the end i wish it was edited down just a tad to remove some of the more lingering moments