THE WATER ROAD

Nice atmosphere on this album. When I listen to it, I immediately think of Hatfield and The North. It has a jazzy feeling, very smooth. However, Hatfield and the North was more about experimenting and had a less serious approach. Thieves' Kitchen also features some crisp guitars and some nice mellotron that also remind me of King Crimson at time. Yes seems to be another influence and while we are at it, Renaissance as well. Some really nice symphonic prog elements can be found on this CD.

"The Long Fianchetto" starts the album nicely. Vocals kicks in after a long instrumental intro over 7 minutes. The flute is a very nice touch. The song keeps you entertained during the whole duration (over 20 minutes), builds up in intensity and ends with a nice crescendo. Well done epic.

This is followed by a short and interesting instrumental "Returglas". If you have fallen asleep with the longish "Chameleon", you will wake up with "Om Tare". Compared to the rest of the CD, this song is quite hectic. It would have made a great instrumental, not too sure about the singing which I find a little annoying, spoils the song and sticks to the mind. Plus the vocals are not in English so I have no idea what this song is all about! Nevertheless, this song is definitively a highlight of this album.

The next three songs have nothing really special about it. I fits the overall mood of the album but I tend to loose interest to this CD listening to them. Fortunately, the last song "The Water Road" is one of my favourite.

Overall this album is pretty mellow, I would recommend highly this for fan of this genre. The prog metal lover in me find it a little on the long side and a little bland at moment, after all it runs over 70 mins. Nonetheless, I still find some of the songs very enjoyable. I suspect fans of the genre would appreciate it greatly. But for me, 3 stars.