VARIOUS ARTISTS (CONCEPT ALBUMS & THEMED COMPILATIONS)

— First review of this album —

The original MUSEA team idea was far from modest: to make a CD in which the 7 greatest early 90's bands from 7 different countries had all titles composed especially for "Seven Days of a Life" concept: the cycle of the journey through Life. The result is GREAT ! I'm trying to understand why this is the 1st review of this 1993 must have CD. Maybe because it's various artists disc, and generally those efforts don't work, but "Seven days of a life" is a flamboyant of sophisticated prog and the compositions were made only to it!

In "Seven days..." the diversity of moods is remarkable, as keep your interest throughout the run time. I deeply thank MUSEA to promote a much more elaborated prog - read mainly symphonic - during early 90's when the Neo prog was in force. Only later, principally in Sweden, prog bands took the 70's models for inspiration ( The first F. K. is from 1995).

So this is not a simple compilation CD as all tracks were unpublished. According to liner notes, because of long delay to gather all material, only SAGRADO was allowed to include the track in their 3rd album. Years before, at the vinyl era, MUSEA made the ENCHANTEMENT album that only had unreleased tracks by French bands (quite worth too). I will focus my rate only in each "Seven days of a Life" tracks (they are from 7 different bands, of course), NOT the bands previous work.

KERRS PINK - "Monday" 4,5 stars. Excellent own melodic moods, vocals, organ, keyboards and guitar; the Norway folk section brings great freshness. No sensation of I've heard this before; HALLOWEEN - "Tuesday" 3,5 stars. This title is in the vein of a sympho- trash-horror movie, not alike a soundtrack; the mood and line up is the same of "Laz" (****,1989 - hey, to me "Laz" album is underrated at PA in October/2009, why ?!). Halloween from France sounds its own with the violin and spectacular and weird ideas and vocals;

ROUSSEAU - "Wednesday" 4,5 stars. Simply one of the best compositions (instrumental) I heard by this German band and I know the 2 previous albums, you can compare Rousseau a bit with Camel; - NORTH STAR, 3 stars, from USA, a more direct prog, great song in Genesis vein, it rocks ; - VERMILION SANDS 3,5 stars. Representing Japan this beautiful song reminds acoustic Genesis meeting Renaissance, great female vocals.

EZRA WINSTON 4 stars. Here the powerful Italy. I'm not sure "Saturday" captures the full complex diversity of such grandiose band, but of course, this is a neat sample. I'm absolute fan of their 2 previous 1988 and 1990, albums; - SAGRADO from Brazil, my land, 3 stars. The last "Sunday" is very symphonic with great violins, English speakers may complain of accents, anyway SAGRADO sounds absolutely their own, main influence comes from Minas Gerais Brazilian state melodic music melted with prog, so very original. You may consider few rock energy, more symphonic, and song or a bit new age oriented music alternating bombastic with romantic. But this track suffers a bit of sameness, it could be shorter. Circa 1988 I watched a SAGRADO show which demonstrated how incredible and better a band can be on stage rather than on a record.

Looking to "Seven days of a Life" cover you may think: inside there's kind of Santa Claus celebration music ;-). With the back draw you get the whole idea. Oh ! Don't get deceived, this is as in MUSEA catalog words : "a magnificent land/soundscape of FLAMBOYANT progressive music" - Symphonic of course. Remind we are in 1993 a time when sophisticated prog was trying to reborn- ANGLAGARD "hybris" is from 1992. So it's musically and historically a very important effort by MUSEA team. In early 90's SI music label from Holland was promoting NEO PROG, but they failed, and MUSEA label exist from 80's begining till nowadays -2009.

And the space sounding jamming solo in the middle of Droids, that's something quite unique. And after all, space sounds + galaxy far far ago, that could work well, right ? So, to continue with some of things Windhawk said, after John William's great scores (six of them, all of them good), it's hard to break this spell. Even Jeremy Soule (Morrowind/ Oblivion music for example) did also good soundtrack to KotOR I. & II., games from Star Wars universe. OK, they're instrumental too, but it's progress.

Now, we got rock + SW and everyone (including me), who know about it is concerned, if it will work. When considering that atmosphere of SW can be quite melancholic, switched for dramatic at times, I think that for the first statement, instruments like Moog, Mellotron and Hammond are well suited. And as for second one, instead of dramatic fight of (starships on screen) strings under conduction of great master, we have progressivo outbursts. It's probably best taken in third track, The Dark Lord of the Sith, where evil (dark) theme is using RPI powers fully. Yes, Italiano rock can be quite psychedelic (as a synonym to madness, crazy sound) and unmelodic. That's fine, fans love it, I can appreciate it, when it's from time to time. Truth is that it took a while to get accustomed to voice in music of SW universe, that's something very unusual (one sung song was in Return of the Jedi). Advantage is, that I don't get lyrics from word to word instantly, therefore I understand only when I concentrate on it. In other words, I can shut of and turn on translating part of my brain when I want. Off = I hear type of voice, pitch of it, music, can evaluate composition, how solid it is, some instruments used. On = these things + lyrics. I suppose they're quite geeky, as WH mentioned. After all, Star Wars is geek thing. That's no offense, it's a good place for movies, comics. OK, lyrics are ridiculous at times, but it's just because I'm not used to hear someone singing "When I was a Jediiii". It will take a while I suppose. And about half jazz, half with poppy melody in chorus, The Millenium Falcon

4(+), for great concept album.

Have you ever... , Did you sometimes ... , Well (this word always works), I though about what could be so special about third installment into this series. And when I heard this, I though to myself that it's very bad first few seconds of track. I expected western-like prog, no these crazy synths. But never mind, once I shook my shock, I get accustomed to perfect, increasingly strong composition, because this is not just song. First track is growing each minute, until dying animal-like sound of synth in the end, perfect conclusion. And Russian sung vocals are, well, typical for them. Second and third tracks are more calm, especially Yesterdays, which I know from their solo album (funny, I can't remember its name, too complex for me, something like Holden...). Very different, full of shorter tracks. Epic was probably big task for them, but they made it well. And last groups is like connection between these two.

4(+), except there is nothing of RPI, or western here, it's perfect, mostly instrumental album full of original compositions. Must have for all fans of newer prog rock.

Not as good as the (book) first one. But that's maybe because I haven't seen it (yet). 1st one just hits symphonic parts more, this jazzy tune sometimes. Not bad, but also don't fit me to western theme. Accidentally I forgot about current track I'm listening and wondered, why this singer sounds like Guy Manning. At least the answer is simple here, it's him. Similar bands like at first take (epic 1), but reduced by 1/2. That makes just half of tracks than on their previous release. One thing is strange. Except GM, these tracks sound much better to me, than their original (I mean better than for example Tilion CD's)

4(-), I'm not so impressed by this, as I was with previous one (check it if you want), but it's not so bad as for these three shameful stars.

What a thrill! Seeing live those legends of German rock! On the menu, Can, Amon Düül II, Kraftwerk, Popol Vuh for the most popular bands. But paradoxically, the prog head will rather enjoy tracks by Birth Control ('The Work is Done' from the famous "Operation" album), Novalis (the whole 'Sonnenwende' epic live, 32' of pure bliss!), Eloy (a tremendous 11' version of 'Decay of Logos' from one of their best albums, "Ocean" (1977)), Jane (a splendid version of 'Expectation' from "Live at Home" (1977)) and the bonus, a 1975 documentary including Grobschnitt, Hölderlin, Tangerine Dream and many more (in German only, what a pity!). The total duration is 171 minutes, the audio format is Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 and the general quality is excellent since most documents come from famous TV shows such as Rockpop and Beat Club (we even can see the speakers of that time with their typical seventies look!). A volume 2 is scheduled. I just can't wait! What a thrill!

(review first published in Acid Dragon #50)

To be honest (I'm always honest, but this is how phrase sounds), I'm amazed. I've seen Once Upon a Time in the West (or C'era una volta il West is you please) when I was a little child and many times since that wonderful moment of greatly build atmosphere, deeds which had to be done, cold staring Frank's eyes, Jill trying to start a new life, Cheyene dirty, with crude ways, but one that can be counted on, Harmonica man, burned by his revenge and Morton, so self-confidental. OK, now we can end this review. What ? You want to hear more ? OK, but only because of you... It's one of the foundation stones in my sense of morality, things which should be done and those that you can't do with clean conscience. Well, I basically enjoy every moment of this Film. And if Spaghetti means offensive term in normal way, I don't take it. After all, Sergio Leone did better job than a lot of others.

He created masterpiece. And to this status, also this album is trying to get close. Six tracks, six times 20-24 minutes. That's fine amount of epic work. Occasionally we can hear sounds of western (horses, shooting bullets, flies). Every track is named after one of the main characters here, except first track, which serves as connection between them. But tracks not only revolves about their namesakes, but explores other topics too. Because every track is different in style. Yes, they all are Italian symphonic, mostly (but take for example Haikara). Jill's track is quite cheerful, Cheyene's is some kind of mysterious, not so nice, but fits to his wild character. And others suits perfectly too. I like they completely understood atmosphere of each topic and made style, pace, use of acoustic/plugged instruments exactly after this vision. Sad thing that it's so forgotten. And "Frank" quite haunting, especially this piano in middle part.

4(+) because I can't see, nor hear any mistakes, also because of great transformation of movie into music (goal that only few accomplished), because of lot of minutes to listen and proof that even bands unknown to me can be good. And importance of this movie also.

EDIT: There are mistakes, even first I tried to overlook them, due to epical structure and length. There are deaf points, when nothing is happening. I wanted so much to give better rating, but I can't.

FACTS Rating this album is a problem. It's almost too vast to listen it at once and understand it as one big (4CD) album. Therefore, any try to rate/review it is quite difficult. So we'll enter into world of feelings and thoughts, instead of facts. Before we take this journey, let me state few things. This is great source of new RPI/RPI like/other interesting new bands. I also read Inferno (in Czech of course) and have to say that it was hard, but really great. MYTHS And this album really reminds me it. It's really truthful capture of these (in modern time, we would say almost LSD-like) imaginations, souls being tortured for sometimes bad things, sometimes just anti-religious (or simply not religious enough) deeds. Vices are here in great numbers, there's also devil (on drawing that was in book, he looked very ridicolous). These tracks are mostly psychedelic (well, let me explain. This isn't psychedelic = space rock, or genre from 60's, it's style of for example keyboards, where they sounds really crazy - even "folky symphonic" Yesterdays here managed to sounds like it. Most of bands/tracks here does sound like that and it's good, as it describes atmosphere of hell very well.). With few exceptions making beacons of hope in all this madness.

5(-), I suppose that this rating would be appropriate. There are few worse songs, but hell, it's more than 4 hours of themed progressive rock, I wasn't expecting everything to be polished and perfect. And feeling I have about it is good. Journey that is really worth.

An interesting concept album based on the movie "Once Upon A Time In The West" where 6 bands were asked to offer up over 20 minutes of music based on a character of the movie.It's harder then it sounds.For the most part it works although i'm not a fan of double concept albums as a rule.And when the first two tracks are my least favourites,well it doesn't get off on the right foot at all for me.The liner notes couldn't be better with a cartoon and detailed information that goes beyond the call of duty. The first track is really about "The West" in general whereas the other tracks do deal with a person from the movie.HAIKARA are from Finland and i am a big fan of this band.So for me the result was disappointing.Female vocals and accordion for the first 2 1/2 minutes.Not a fan.My favourite part comes in before 9 minutes and ends after 12 minutes.Nice rhythm here.The rest for me is difficult.The intro is reprised to end it. RANDONE from Italy does the second track "Jill".This is better with all the vintage instruments from the seventies taking the spotlight like moog,hammond and mellotron.This is fairly laid back with male and female vocals in Italian.Some nice electric guitar before 14 minutes.Just not a fan of this one though. TILION was a band i didn't know about from Italy.Man they impressed me here though.The best track from disc one easily.This song's called "Cheyene" and it opens with experimental sounds before kicking in with vocals after 2 1/2 minutes.Piano and guitar come in a minute later as the tempo picks up.Drums and a great sound follow.Kind of jazzy 4 1/2 minutes in as it settles.It's intense 7 minutes in before kicking back in.Fantastic sound! It settles as the song continues to change.It's intense again to end it. Disc 2 starts off with a band called LA VOCE DEL VENTO who is actually those two guys from PARALLEL OR 90 DEGREES now called THE TANGENT Andy Tillison and Guy Manning.They don't disappoint in the least.You should see all the instruments these two guys play.And they both sing.First Guy is up on vocals after 3 1/2 minutes,then Andy sings after 9 minutes.These guys are gun slingers man.Some great organ on this one.This is just a treat to listen to and my favourite off this double album.A pleasure.Oh the songs called "Harmonica". Next up is an Italian band called TAPROBAN who i hadn't heard of before but was left very impressed.The song is called "Morton".It opens with the sound of a train coming through.Very cool.It kicks in around a minute with a good heavy sound.This sounds incredible when the vocals join in.Organ after 5 1/2 minutes with some passionate vocals in tow.Chunky bass follows then they jam for a while.I like the synths.The sound of waves end it. "Frank" is the final song by TRION from the Netherlands.The guitar in this one surprised me the most.There's plenty of it along with mellotron.The church organ early is a powerful statement too.A very good song.I'd give disc two 4 stars easy,but disc one is no more then 3 stars.Still there's over 90 minutes of great music if i skip the first two tracks.You talked me into it.4 stars it is.

The third installment in Colossus Projects Spaghetti Epic series is yet another fascinating number in the series; continuing the high quality that is the trademark of most anything where Finnish Colossus Magazine is involved.

Littl Tragedies gets the honours of opening this album, and serve up on of the absolutely best compositions to tbe featured in this series. Organs, synths and keyboards dominate in a symphonic celebration covering most aspects of what's good in this stylistic expression - the 19 minutes this one lasts is a pure pleasure from start to finish.

Romanian/Hungarian outfit Yesterday is next, contributing with a track containing many intriguing parts, including a neat folk-tinged passage, but ultimately this one is too broken up to work as a whole.

N.O.T. finish this venture with an epic track that should intrigue most everyone fond of the particular Italian-styled symphonic rock. A tad patchy in places; but quite a few truly astounding passages makes up for most of this.

A strong release overall, where the opening number is a reason good enough to investigate this production.

Less Italian bands would have been nice

Those Collosus - Musea projects are always something which you can wait with high expectations and almost never be disappointed. Almost never because their early projects lacked something which their present projects have as a rule: diversity. Always it is their goal to put out an album that resembles the masters from the long lost progressive decade, more specifically the Italian giants, and, up until this album in particular, most bands featured in their epic projects were from Italy, what do not mean that the album would be good.

This is the living proof (more like released proof, but anyway) of that. Four out of six bands are Italian, yet this double album have a terrible continuity, because two songs (one in each disc) is terrible or has terrible parts. Those songs are The Secret Passage and A New Dawn, both by Italian bands, being the last one the worst, because The Secret Passage actually have some interesting instrumental parts, wile A New Dawn don't. However, in both cases, neither lead vocalist can sing a single tuned note (in The Secret Passage's case, the female vocalist completely RUIN the song, I mean, she is the main composer, but she should stick with what she does best: playing an instrument and composing).

Fortunately, most of the album is good, being the best song the one that opens the album, entitled Un Pensiero e Sempre Libero, from the band Leviathan. The album also is able to deliver what it was suppose to deliver: music inspired by the Italian giants, but somewhere between more than two and a half hours of progressive rock the magic slowly fades away and The Colossus of Rhodes becomes rather dull and worn-out. Because of that, 3 stars only. Thank God the latter projects are more diverse and interesting.