THE RAINMAKER

I shall review this in order of my preference... 1. Road to Sanctuary - More excellence from the Flokis, as usual the longest composition is the best, gorgeous hammond work and silky guitar licks..then gives way to classical guitar and assorted keys, the instrumental work is tremendous and a rather good finale as expected, with the usual Stolte Guitar virtuosity. This track has Yes like parts but it's not really derivative. 2. The Rainmaker - Instrumental, Pipe organ and sumptuous synths and nice mellotron - parts of it remind me of the sound track to "Predator 1" - The usual ace guitar makes this one of the best instrumentals by TFK. 3. Serous Dreamers - Excellent keyboards and just Symphonic prog at it's best - this track ISNT long enough - reckon there was latitude to make this a fifteen or sixteen minute effort - then it might have replaced Road to sanctuary as best track. 4. City of Angels - Again sumptuous keyboards get this off to a flier and this track has a moog solo as well - Nice synth riffs to end and the usual build up to an epic crescendo finish. 5. Sword of God / Thru the Walls / Blessing of a smile / Red Alert - these four tracks are all too hard to separate, Sword of God is heavy like deep Purple while thru the walls showcases mellotron and organ with a Hackettesque guitar bit as well. Blessing of a smile and Red Alert are both instrumentals with assorted keyboard work. 6 The opener has a nice heavy riff but this track is spoilt by a weird pointless noises ending. 7. World without a heart & Elaine are two shorter ballads and definately the weakest two tracks on this CD. Overall - doesn't get near the epics of the later CD's - but a solid 4 stars because some of the tracks (top three) are essential to have in your symphonic cd collection. FOUR STARS.