THE CASTLE

The debut album from this German band. A band I suggested for inclusion some time ago.

This band, or perhaps project, consist of two keyboard players. One of them also doubles up as a guitarist. That is guitarist as in playing Camel like guitar solos. The music on The Castle is a mix of New Age and a bit more dynamic symph prog. It is called meditation music and should be avoided at all cost if you take your car/truck/tractor/milk float on a long drive. You will probably fall asleep. Which it seems is the whole idea behind this album.

Meditation is a good idea. But it is not a good idea when trying to review an album. A review is supposed to be more than just ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ (as in snoring). Although I am sure that will be a theme up for heated debate in the ProgArchives forums.

This album trundles along with some pastoral keyboards with some sound and rhythm effects added as a creative spices. That and some long guitar solos. None of them are interesting.

There are some good melody lines here. But most of this album is hard to concentrate on. And I am meditating for world peace throughout this review. Still, this album is not an album I would recommend. In short, this is only an album for the insomniac or medidating masses.

2 stars

After a promising intro, an almost symphonic sounding overture, this album then settles into derivative electronic music that delves into numerous styles. The Alley leads us through a snoozefest of generic electronica, the type hundreds of keyboard noodlers were creating for every new age record in th eighties.

After that, we are treated with pale imitations of Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk and the like, with some fair solos over the top. But nothing to get too excited over. The last few tracks bring us back to some classical overtones, and almost make the album worthwhile. But unfortunately, it is not enough to undo the damage of the middle of the album.

The seeds of Changing Images were set in late-70's, when bassist Volker Kuhn would join the Germans Soma, where Martin Kornberger played keyboards.Soma split up but the friendship between the two men led them to this project, after Kuhn switched to guitar playing.Several cassettes would follow, before Changing Images released their debut ''The castle'' on Musea Records in 1991, containing compositions recorded in Aachen between 1989 and 1991.

The sound of the album reflects Progressive Rock's stylings around the period.This is an Electronic/Symphonic experience with strong New Age hints throughout, totally instrumental but quite uneven, where the result comes close to the works of GANDALF or DR. COENOBITE and the main influence comes as a hybrid between MIKE OLDFIELD, THE ENID and VANGELIS.With the instrumentation being limited in bass, synths and guitars and any other instrument being actually sampled, ''The castle'' has overall this thin 80's sound that spoils any attempt of creating grandiose and atmospheric orchestrations.Some tracks have a nice bombastic and highly symphonic atmosphere, where the duo of Kornberger and Kuhn reaches its inspirational peak and comes up with a few decent arrangements, built around dramatic keyboards/organs and good guitar solos.However the mass of the album is an incosistent mix of New Age themes with Electronic/Symphonic Music, totally ruined by the awful drum machines, sampled choirs and flutes, while even the ideas are very monotonous and hypnotic, having a very soft approach, which lacks any kind of dynamics.

''The castle'' shouldn't be regarded actually as a Progressive Rock album.This is more of a nice creation of smooth, almost cinematic, all instrumental music, good for playing it in the background but not for major listenings.