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Flame Dream - Elements CD (album) cover

ELEMENTS

Flame Dream

 

Symphonic Prog

3.77 | 73 ratings

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Progbear
Prog Reviewer
5 stars I find it really quite a pity that this album is so hard to find (legally, anyway...pirated CD's are readily available from the notorious Tachika label, which I DON'T recommend buying!) as it really is something of a lost symphonic classic from the dark days of the punk era.

Urs Waldispühl is long gone, allowing Roland Ruckstuhl free rein to fill up the space with wall-to-wall keys. To say that this is absolute Nirvana for a prog fan is redundant. Somewhere along the line, Ruckstuhl acquired a Yamaha CS-80 synthesizer, adding a new richness and fullness to the sound. As before, his acoustic piano playing, displaying Beethoven and Rachmanninoff influences, is like manna from heaven-one ethereal, celestial cascade after another. If you liked Keith Emerson's piano playing on "Take A Pebble", now imagine an album filled with moments like that.

Peter Wolf's voice is still not particularly what I'd call "stellar", but he does a resonable job putting the songs across. Much more interesting is his woodwind work. His flute playing is nice, but it's his layered saxophone work that gives the album the unique feel, imparting a fascinating texture on the music. The soprano sax that crops up often is clearly used as a less-difficult-to-play substitute for oboe, and while I'd have preferred the real deal, it serves the music. Sometimes you have to make do with what you have

Make no mistake, this album breaks no new ground, treading an already familiar symphonic-rock groove. That said, it does what it does extremely well, and does so at a time when the climate was most hostile for such music. I'd feel quite confident in putting this album alongside the much acclaimed GARDEN SHED album by England. Really, it's that good.

Progbear | 5/5 |

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