I really like everything here. The power and majesty of these songs is great. That said, in some ways it works better taken song by song than it does as a whole disc. Don’t get me wrong, if you put the disc in more as background music, it works better than as something to sit and intently listen to. That’s because there’s not a lot of variety in terms of tempo or intensity on the album. Still, there are some minor peaks and valleys and when it’s this strong, who cares. The second disc here is a DVD with different editions of the same album. That’s basically the icing on the cake as the album proper is the main meal – and it’s quite a good one, at that.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2013  Volume 6 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Tentative, atmospheric melody opens this. It builds gradually outward from there before expanding to some seriously lush and powerful music. As it continues on the arrangement gets an infusion of power and majesty. It drops back down further down the musical road, but then works back upward to continue. This is an extremely effective piece of music and a great opener.

With that title, I somewhat expected a harder rocking piece. Overall, this fits more into the same type of more or less atmospheric modern progressive rock that dominates the disc. It’s a good piece, but some more variety would have been welcome.

Arguably one of the most dynamic cuts here, there is really some passion and power to this awesome piece of music.

Coming in quite guitar oriented, but still quite mellow, this arrangement gets more layers of sound added as the piece continues. It’s lush and pretty. By this point, though, there is definitely a monolithic nature to the set. It kind of gets in the way of the full appreciation of each song.

Although in many ways this reinforces the monolithic nature of the set, it includes a scorching electric guitar dominated section that’s quite cool and a bit of variety. There is also a section later that really makes me think of the chaotic noisy kind of stuff early Pink Floyd would sometimes do (think of the screaming part of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”).

Piano starts things here. That instrument remains the driving factor for a lot of the piece. Overall, it’s a mellow and atmospheric cut.