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Quasar - The Loreli CD (album) cover

THE LORELI

Quasar

 

Neo-Prog

3.23 | 42 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Gerinski
Prog Reviewer
3 stars Between 2.5 and 3 stars for this Neo-Prog album with a strong 80's feel.

This is the 2nd release by this british band and I never heard the debut so I can not compare between them. Only founding member Keith Turner remained from the debut line- up, and two points stand out from this new line-up: First the distinctive voice of Tracy Hitchings, who would later on work with Landmarq and Clive Nolan among others. There's no question that Tracy had a beautiful and powerful voice, but her singing style is a bit too rocker and dramatic for this music, which is otherwise very gentle and smooth. Secondly, if I understand well the credits, there was no keyboardist and all the keyboard sounds were played by Toshi Tsuchiya on a midi guitar, so considering that the album sounds very keyboard-driven one must reckon that he did an amazing job.

While being totally Neo-Prog, they do not sound as an early Marillion clone, but rather as a soft version of Pallas with more 80's feel, unlike other bands who looked for a more retro sound Quasar fully embraced the 80's new sounds such as the electronic drums and the mentioned midi guitar with those typical 80's thin synth patches. This has two consequences, firstly the sound is very thin and plastic, very dated when we listen to it in 2010, and secondly it has the effect that the music sounds more pop than it really is, making every 4/4 segment sound as if it was some new-wave band playing a proggier than usual song.

Despite these weaknesses the compositions are actually quite decent and the quality level is consistent throughout the full album so it's difficult to single out best or worst tracks. Maybe I would point "Logic?" as the worst because in the 2nd half it features an excessively poppy chorus. I have the USA edition which has as bonus tracks 2 totally unnecessary shorter edit versions of the title track and of "Logic?".

Possibly interesting for Neo fans who want to explore the lesser known bands of the genre, but surely dispensable for the vast majority of other proggers.

Gerinski | 3/5 |

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