COMPENDIUM

A lot of praise and positive reviews so far for this second album by Mr. So&So but interesting enough they all come from guest reviewers. I'm not saying they are not reliable because of that or per se too enthusiastic but after having listened to and reviewed the debut I could hardly believe this band had grown into an excellent band all over sudden. The debut was a nice album but hardly more than that. Time to take a close look at this successor.

The album starts with two small epics. The first is ok with overall the same level of quality as the debut maybe slightly better. let's say a 3,25* case. Next composition is a lot more interesting especially in the second half where they do an excellent Marillion imitation for about one minute (around 8:00 mark), rest of the song is not Marillion at all I believe, more like early Pendragon like I said in my first review. This is mainly caused by the vocalist who sounds a lot like Nick Barrett, typical British, I really like these kind of vocals and accents. This second mini-epic scores around 3,75* to me. Third song could as well have been on the debut and is a typical 3* effort. Next is already the third very long song and at the end two more are following so at least where these mini-epics are concerned this album is pretty impressive. And I have to admit none of these 5 songs is sloppy, poor or even average. Fifth and sixth song are two short ones again and these are both again around 3 stars composition and quality wise. Good songs but no more. Sixth is an instrumental by the way again sounding like Marillion in the beginning doing the Mosley impersonation. Last two mini-epics are sounding ok once again for the first one and a half bit but then we come to the second half of last song The Visitor. Goodness me, that's where they got the positive reviews from no doubt. What a terrific guitar display we are treated with here. Best few minutes of the entire album without a doubt.

So there we have the explanation for all the enthusiasm. With such a grand finale you leave this album with an almost ecstatic feeling and you're indeed tempted to give a four star rating. But looking at the whole album a bit more critically I can only conclude the other 64 minutes are somewhere between good and very good where quality level is concerned. So I wouldn't want to call this an overall excellent album. But it's no doubt better than the debut and comes a lot closer to a four star rating. I'll leave it at three though (3,4).