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I Am The Manic Whale - Everything Beautiful In Time CD (album) cover

EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN TIME

I Am The Manic Whale

 

Crossover Prog

4.00 | 83 ratings

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Albert H
5 stars Wow! This is described in the booklet as "an unashamedly progressive" album. They're exactly right. The musicianship is of the highest order, the songs are lengthy and complex - not tricksy or overblown, but well crafted, There is an element of the experimental in some of the songs, which brings a freshness and originality to the compositions. This is British Symphonic Prog at its very best!

I wouldn't single out any of the musicians for particular praise (though the guitar is frequently stellar!) - they work really well together as a unit. The amount of rehearsal necessary to get these complicated arrangements to work flawlessly must have been truly staggering. Considering that this is a privately released CD, there are no evident limitations in recording, It sounds great! Some of the words used in the songs must be difficult to sing - the lyrics are pretty "wordy"!

The first track - "Open Your Eyes" - really made me sit up and listen when I heard it for the first time on the Chris Hunter Show on RaidersFM.com - I decided that I must buy the CD based on just that one track! His review was also very favourable. The whole album stands up to repeated plays - there's so much there that I keep discovering new elements to these complex arrangements. I particularly like the use of classical guitar as a contrast to the electric sounds - they're not afraid to put the acoustic guitar to the front of the mix - and the overall recorded balance is excellent throughout.

A superb first album - I hope that they can keep up the high quality of song writing, musicianship and production for their next release! I couldn't quite rate this as totally "essential" - but it's really close at about a 4.8, so I will give it the special 5-star rating.

Albert H | 5/5 |

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