ONCE UPON A TIME

CRYPTEX are hailing from the Hanover/Brunswick region in Germany ... which by the way is not far away from my homebase, yikes! They originally started as a trio, where keyboarder Simon Moskon and his concise singing voice will be the main constant during the following years, until today. 'Once Upon A Time' is coming from a heavy rock fundament in general, though actually enriched with symphonic keyboard contributions here and there. I would say a little treasure chest really, made of twelve consistently entertaining tracks, hey, even thirteen, if you may count the bonus song Closer in. This one was offered prior to the album release, quasi as an appetizer. Very appealing, what finally kept me close to the band, definitely a highlight.

They are starting the album with the title track, powerful, diversified, and provided with fine vocal arrangements. This makes it quite easy to stay on task. The entire album is arranged as a well thought out chain of songs with immediate transitions. There's little AOR sentiment to state too, soundwise this is comparable to the likes of Arabs In Aspic and Enchant in parts. Excellent guitar work on the dynamic Bloodmoon, some balladesque moments like on I See It In Your Eyes won't be missed too on the other hand. And the melancholic A Mo(u)rning serves the icing on the cake. Superb excursion overall, fine compositions, alternating in tempo and mood all over. I will keep an eye on their future live activity, that's for sure.

This is the fourth album from German band Cryptex, and for this one Simon Moskon (lead vocals, keyboards) and Marc Andrejkovits (bass, backing vocals) have been joined by Andre Jean Henri Mertens (guitars, backing vocals) and drummer Simon Schröder. The band has managed to gain a lot of fans across wide musical spectrums, and they have played more than 250 concerts in 23 European countries, have played in the States, have headlined their own tours and have supported bands as musically diverse as Pain Of Salvation, Threshold and Alice Cooper. Their own style is that of crossover progressive rock, moving into melodic hard rock territory and new guitarist Mertens has come in as a songwriter and has had an immediate impact.

It is an album mostly of shorter material, with only a few of the twelve songs longer than five minutes, and it is based around Moskon's vocals and songs with great hooks. The keyboards in question are often piano, but they can switch from something which is mostly Moskon accompanying himself to a band playing full on melodic rock, blurring the boundaries as to what is progressive rock and what is melodic radio friendly hard rock. It is an incredibly easy album to get inside, one which can be enjoyed the very first time it is played and just keeps getting better. It does feel quite lightweight in some respects, with little in the way of real depth, but what you hear is what you get, and the result is something which is just fun. I'm not so sure about the song "Body Language" where they try to push themselves into a slightly more serious area, with a voiceover, but when they are stay lighter then this quite an enjoyable album.