ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

Crystal Palace's debut is a very time-specific album, recalling of the times when neo-prog wasn't so dark and metallic. It's similar to earliy-era Arena or Pendragon, of better yet, Clive Nolan's before-Arena synth-pop influenced project Shadowland. On the Edge of the World has glossy production values of the 80s synth pop and commercial hard rock - theatrical vocals, cheesy pseudo-classical synths and loud airy guitars. Songs are relatively compact, and in addition to multi-part ones there are the typical 80s style theatrical (you see I use this word a lot here) fast rocker and theatrical ballad. Well I'm all for lots of lead guitar lines and passionate vocals, but even I think there is too much of this here, making it hard to focus on the stable melodies. Its not bad, but nothing that bands such as Arena didn't do better.