DISOBEY

First off this album blew me away the first time I spun it as the opening track 'Disobey' (6:45) is quite unique with its dragging nuance - it sounds a bit of atmospheric and it impressed me and made me curious with what the next tracks would sound like. Musically the opening track is probably like typical neo-prog mellow style but the sound experience is really excellent to me, maybe the unique background keyboard work that sound like dragging. The second track 'Jekyll' (5:12) is another excellent track with a very nice acoustic guitar work that you can find all across the segments in the track. The music style is not something new but the overall sound of the music is really nice. There are keyboard solo that is typical neo- prog music and it really sounds beautiful.

The third track is 'Prelude, riff and fugue' (4:41) is an excellent instrumental that explores great keyboard work and stunning guitar solo. As the music flows I really entangled with the beauty of tagline melody the track has, combined with excellent harmonies from the instruments played throughout the track. Even though the tagline melody is quite simple but the music textures make the track really nice to enjoy. 'Carousel' (9:57) starts off with guitar fills followed with electric guitar solo and vocal line. The track moves slowly into crescendo until it reaches at approximately minute 3 something where it offers guitar solo followed with vocal line. The music reminds me to the kind of Pendragon. 'American rodeo' (4:09) is basically a straight rocker with a stunning guitar solo at the middle of the track backed with good keyboard work. 'Could have been yesterday' (5:55) is basically a mellow track that tends to be poppy. 'Ailsa's lullaby' (1:36) is basically a bridge that connects to a good track 'Joke' (4:22).

The centerpiece of this album is probably the epic 'The student prince' that comprises four movements. The first movement 'When will I see you again' (9:11) is the longest one and it offers nice keyboard works as the vocal line is performing. The song moves in various tempo and style changes. The second movements 'And so to bed' (5:57) provides a captivating keyboard solo followed with Floydian guitar solo. The third movement 'Foolcircle' (7:13) starts nicely with a nice piano touch that sets a nice foundation for vocal to enter with a nice melody. It;s really a nice opening. The song moves in a mellow style with stunning Floydian guitar solo augmented with nice vocal line. The last movement 'Green light coda' (3:31) is basically something that is simple in terms of arrangement as it mainly contains vocal and piano to conclude the album.

Overall it's a very nice neo-prog album even though you will find almost all of the music offered tend to be mellow and there is no single track that is dynamic in style and fast in tempo like Marillion's Forgotten Sons or He Knows You Know. I think this nice album deserves a 3.5 rating (7 out of 10). Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW