THE WRAP

It is rare, these days, for me to dig too deep into modern symphonic rock. There is a lot of good stuff out there but there is also a lot of formulaic/retro stuff out there, and to be honest I've heard enough already. So it takes a really good song to catch my attention these days, and Sunchilds 2010 album had just that in the opening track "Day of My Destiny".

Kalugin, the mind behind the project, has learned well from the likes of early Genesis, for there is no instrumental wankery to ease the listener into the album; from the very first moment, this vocal-oriented track starts with - well vocals - soft and poignant, sung over a piano line. Okay, it's a break up song, and you could say that it has cliches, but it is great in my mind for two significant reasons. The first reason is that it sets up the concept of the album quite nicely (that concept being about "The Wrap" between us and others; not too different from that of Pink Floyd's The Wall). The second reason is simply that this song is amazing in terms of songwriting. It is catchy from beginning to end, builds up quite nicely, and all the elements work well together.

After many listens, the 4 minutes at the beginning are still, in my mind, the best 4 minutes on the album. But I would do this album an injustice not to mention that single track, with the same name as the album "The Wrap", which takes up 2/3rds of the album. That's right, we are exposed to a 40 minute prog rock epic. My thoughts are - well - it's not Supper's Ready. It's got a lot of really great pieces, some great atmosphere, but also some parts (although just a few!) that tend to fade into the background. The first ten minutes are uniformly great and the remaining 30 are, for the most part, pleasant to very good. The song features heavy, metallic guitars at parts, ethnic keys at others, great singing - pretty much anything a great symphonic prog epic needs. But it lacks the cohesion that makes the best tracks so powerful.

Beyond that, the remaining tracks are all enjoyable, if none are as good as the opener. The last track does suffer from some painfully bad lyrics mind you, from the first time I've heard it the line "It's really good time for corn flakes" has made me have a hard time taking the rest of the album seriously. Luckily, it's in the last song, so most of the album isn't tarnished by it.