VISIONS... AND REALITY

Back in the mid 90`s many Dream Theater inspired clones come out of the wood works Ivanhoe are one of them. Musicaly this CD has some great ideas but sadly what lets the CD down is the vocals they suffer from the boy in the well syndrome , the songs are varied and if it wasn`t for the horrible vocals this could have been a decent CD.

Great album: an ethereal atmosphere pervades all the album, thanks to the great technique and ability of all the musicians; the voice of Andy B. Franck is particular and wonderful both to the high and low notes. Really a masterpiece: buy it!

I don't know if you are aware of ELEGY, but IVANHOE sound a lot like ELEGY in their first two albums ''Labyribth of dreams'' and ''Supremacy''...and I'm fond of that style of music...Carefully arranged heavy/power/progressive metal in equal doses with high voltage vocals by Andy Franck...not the best vocalist I've ever heard but he is ok for that kind of job...Highlights of the album are ''Deeper ground'', an excellent track that identifies the power/prog metal term (very close to the style of CONCEPTION) and the beautiful ballad ''Eternal light''...Fans of early ELEGY as well as fans of power/prog in general will have a very good time with this album...7/10 for me...