THIRTEEN TOLLS AT NOON

I have a certain attraction to long pieces of music. Which is what led me to find this strange album. It took some time, but I found myself really, truly loving 'Pilgrimage to Nowhere' off this CD. Which, I suppose was the best result I could expect from it. Seeing as the CD goes for over 70 minutes, 'Pilgrimage' takes up 44 of those - and I rank the song as one of my favorites ever, if not the most listened to. Which explains my rating of four stars for this release.

Now, about the rest of the album...

I can't see how they could create such a wonderful, catchy epic tune, and surround it with such empty, boring redunant pieces of... well, uninteresting music. I found no appeal in anything outside of the huge epic - which is unfortunate, because if I give the songs their own individual ratings, that is : Waterclock 2, White Flower 2, Fairies Inn 1, Pilgrimage to Nowhere 5- and the long titled last piece 1, I have to scale down the rating drastically. Which is a shame. I would much prefer that this have been released as a one song album with Pilgrimage to Nowhere, which has moments which hold their own with the very best of prog in my own opinion. Meandering, yes. But still filled with moments of inspiration that I just felt the rest of the album completely lacked.

So in total, I'll cautiously give this a four, rounded up from 3.5 because of the wonderful epic track - but be warned, the rest is horribly redundant for my taste. Even Pilgrimage feels a bit redundant, but it took me many listens to truly appreichiate it. And I had the time to indulge in a 44 minute song many times before I reached this conclusion; it's really good. Pity the rest isn't up to the same standard though.