ROCKING HORSE, AND OTHER SHORT STORIES FROM THE PAST

Masterpiece of Progressive rock! I'll explain why: although the sound can remember Marillion, i think Aragon doesn't have any influences of it, but it's influenced by Mike Oldfield for the keyboards and the vibes that they use, and Genesis and Rush for the theatrical and expressive vocals. The music is keyboards driven or I should say "vibes" driven for the massive use of the digital vibes riff that they use, the guitar isn't omnipresent and is used just to give a groove factor in the composition, and this makes the music very original.

The moods is melancholic, dark and dynamic, especially the first track it's awesome where Aragon show all their talent: this is a long track that begins in a quite way to grow slowly and become hard and fast, almost heavy metal, but with a mute guitar, that is very original, after that a percussive keys solos concludes the heavy parts and begin a mellow parts with a catchy digital vibraphone riff in the vein of Mark kelly with vocals, after 2 minutes this mellow parts grow again to change again into a intricate instrumental passage of vibes solos and psychedelic/space guitar.

Dougan's voice is absolutely fantastic and he is very able to modulate it, with a wide range tune, so that he can resemble a mix of Peter Gabriel and Geddy Lee of Rush. The other track are good too, and the drum machine it well used with a lot of time changed, the other best tracks are "changes" and "secrets". This album is not for all?but if you like the darker side of Marillion with a powerful and scratched voice this album is for you, 5 full stars.